Page:Et Cetera, a Collector's Scrap-Book (1924).djvu/44

 splendid. It is true that this verbal insanity affects us in different ways. Me does the coming of the almond blossom afflict with adjectives—great and gorgeous adjectives in merry companies—fallen together by the chance of the road, but surely inseparable thereafter. There is nothing to be done with these blithe comrades but to enshrine them in notebooks and sigh a requiem. For, fine as life is, there is nowhere anything on the earth worthy of such epithets—and I lack my note-book when I wander in the city of dreams. Moreover, this futility extends to the ideas themselves that are bred in our minds during this happy, bitter season. On a fair morning of spring I seemed to have discovered what really should be done with H.M.S. Buzzard, that promising gunboat which lies off the Embankment for the encouragement of the naval volunteers. As in a vision, I saw her captured at night by twelve decadent millionaires, hopeful of winning the ultimate sensation by their piratical enterprise. Thereafter the tale pursued a pleasant and profitable course. Their number raised to thirteen by the volunteering of a romantic small boy, my millionaires diverted themselves by singing sentimental songs to the tall white masts and by scattering explosive shells like roses all over London. Beaten at last by the invincible force of the British Navy, they blow a magnificent hole in the bottom of the ship, which sinks some three feet, it being low tide, and there are god-like laughters upon the decks.