SESTRINA
CHAPTER I
“O SWEET is woman clad in modest smiles andgrass!”
The speaker, Royal Clensy, was an ardent dreamer,romanticist and mystic. He did not wear a flowingrobe or seer’s beard, he was simply a handsome youngEnglishman attired in a serge suit, wearing a topee ashe leaned against the stem of a palm tree. And had ourhero have been able to express his opinions in distinguishedpoetic style, instead of in the crude phrase whichopens this chapter, it is an extremely dubious point as towhether he would ever have been awarded the NobelPrize for Vers Libre. However, though Clensy wasambitious, he was quite devoid of pretence, which wasas well since competition seems keen wherever one goes.
“Cah! Cah! Cah! Too whoo Ha He!” said asecond voice. It was the voice of wisdom, the philosophyof the ages was expressed on the wrinkled brow,in the solemn bright eyes and on the shining grey andcrimson striped homespun suit, as away, in its ownprivate aeroplane, it sailed over the palms—out of thisstory! It was a full-blooded native of the MarquesasIsles—a cockatoo!
The first speaker, who still stood under a