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 THE MAGIC RING Our faces fell. The curate of the hour was not a success, from our point of view. He was not a funny man, in any sense of the word.

"— but I'm not going to," he added, cheerfully. "Then I was to stop at some cottage and ask—what was it? There was nettle-rash mixed up in it, I 'm sure. But never mind, I've forgotten, and it doesn't matter. Look here, we're three desperate young fellows who stick at nothing. Suppose we go off to the circus?"

Of certain supreme moments it is not easy to write. The varying shades and currents of emotion may indeed be put into words by those specially skilled that way; they often are, at considerable length. But the sheer, crude article itself—the strong, live thing that leaps up inside you and swells and strangles you, the dizziness of revulsion that takes the breath like cold water—who shall depict this and live? All I knew was that I would have died then and there, cheerfully, for the funny man; that I longed for red Indians to spring out from the hedge on the dog-cart, just to show what I 85