Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/30

 pulled out a bulky manuscript. It was his own work. Is it necessary to hint that it was a tale essentially romantic in character?

He flung it into the grate and set fire to it. It represented the labor of two years, but as he watched it burn, stirring the sheets now and then so the flames would catch them more readily, he smiled, unvisited by even the most shadowy second thought of regret.

For why the deuce should a man with $500,000 in his pocket write romances? Why should anyone write anything who is free to live? For the first time in his existence Cleggett was free.

He picked up a sword. It was one of his favorite rapiers. Sometimes people came out of the books—sometimes shadowy forms came back to claim the weapons that had been theirs—and Cleggett fought them. There was not an unscarred piece of furniture in the place. He bent the flexible blade in his hands, tried the point of it, formally saluted, brought the weapon to parade, dallied with his imaginary opponent's sword for an instant. . ..

It seemed as if one of those terrible, but brilliant, duels, with which that room was so familiar, was about to be enacted. . ..