Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/62



HE Executive stopped for a moment and scrutinized his visitors quizzically; then he laughed. “May I inquire, gentlemen, whence arises this gloom?”

The Auditor bowed low. “Good sir,” he said, “your Excellency fails to distinguish between gloom and the gravity of sages.”

“If the funereal,” replied the Governor, “be a sine qua non of the converse of the wise, then there has been here this night great cause for envy on the part of Solomon, the Son of David, King of Israel; for such gloom I have not met with in a world of evil days.”

“And, sir,” responded the Auditor, waving his hand like a barbaric king, “if absence of respect for the dignity of the thoughtful be a symptom of organic mental defect, then there is now here, in truth, great cause for envy upon the part of Wamba, the Son of Witless, 38