Page:The Man Who Died Twice (1924).djvu/18

 That I should not have known, so he averred,

But for a memory that survived in him

That I had never yelped at him with others,

Who feared him, and was not among the biters,

Who, in the years when he was dangerous

Had snapped at him until he disappeared

Into the refuge of remoter streets

And partly was forgiven. I was grateful—

Assuring him, as adroitly as I might,

That had he written me down among the biters,

I should have mourned his error. “Let them go;

They were so near forgotten,” he said once,

Up there in his gaunt hall-room not long after,

“That memory now becomes a punishment

For nourishing their conceit with my contempt

As once I did. What music have they made

So different in futility since then