Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/20

 'apostle' as he revealed himself to one of his disciples. A biography and bibliography will be found in the appropriate works of reference. Only a single chapter has been attempted here; of those who knew him during the nineties, which he loved so well and of which he preserved the tradition so faithfully, perhaps one will write that earlier chapter and describe Teixeira in the position which he took up on their outskirts. And one better qualified than the present writer should paint this sphinx of the bridge-table, with his perversity of declaration and his brilliance of play. "You have made your contract," admitted a friend who was partnering him for the first time; "but . . . but . . . but why that declaration?" "I wanted to see your expression," answered Teixeira with the complacency of a man who did not greatly mind whether he won or lost, but abominated a dulL game. Those who knew him all his life may feel, with the writer, that the last half-dozen years constitute, naturally and dramatically, a chapter by themselves. They are the period of his literary recognition and, unhappily, of his physical decline; of his emergence from