Page:Solo (1924).pdf/154

 eternity in the chimes, and a hint of fortitude. For Paul they were even prophetic.

"You, boy," they seemed to say, "you will go from this town to other towns, from this land to other lands, always exploring, always an alien. You will seek knowledge and happiness, but you will find them only in oddments, like apples fallen from a barrow; the barrow will always be beyond the brow of the hill. It is your destiny to be sad when you wish to be glad, and most sad of all when you learn that life is only a brief solo, and that your solo, in the ears of God, is, like a million others, merged into the blurred, harmonious hum of the cosmos. So much for vanity, boy. So much for your long trousers. Our chime is a marching-song and an epitaph. Let it for ever echo in your heart, and you will be neither too improvidently hopeful nor too cruelly deceived:

Paul had been unconsciously holding a bruised leaf of eucalyptus to his face. Its odour, bitter-sweet and pungent, seemed an integral part of the oracle.

Miss Green's invitation to attend the concert at the Seamen's Institute Paul regarded as a tribute to his personal distinction, and he made a careful toilet. On arriving at the hall he was discountenanced to find not only that the whole crew had been invited, but that one of them, Dismal Jimmy, was to contribute a song to the programme. Paul's vanity was punctured, and as he took a seat beside Otto he chided himself for having been a prig.