Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/731

322 the custom is in that country) and ordered chicken for his dinner: the clerk, without any trouble in his face, put his hand into his desk, and drew out a derringer, wherewith he covered the newcomer and said in a calm historic voice: Stranger, you will not have chicken, you will have hash.

"This story you seem to have forgotten. So 1 will apply it, and say that you will have the Kelmscott books as they come out. In short you will have hash because it would upset me very much if you did not have a share in my 'larx.'

"As to the Olaf Saga, I had forgotten what you had had; chiefly I think because I did not prize the big-paper copies much. They were done in the days of ignorance, before the Kelmscott Press was, though hard on the time when it began.

"You see as to all these matters I do the books mainly for you and one or two others; the public does not really care about them a damn—which is stale. But I tell you I want you to have them, and finally you shall.

"Yours affectionately, ""

The autumn at Kelmscott was unusually quiet and happy. A certain degree of physical feebleness had now become his normal condition; he was seldom able to take long walks, or to spend whole days fishing; but he delighted in driving among the beautiful and familiar villages, and in shorter walks near home. It was on one of these walks, at the end of September, that when his companions perched on a gate to rest he sat down on the roadside with his legs straight out in front of him, saying, "I shall sit on the world."

It would be difficult to convey to any one who did not