Adventures in Contentment

"Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn: So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; And hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn." When I had finished I found myself standing in my own room with one arm raised, and, I suspect, a trace of tears in my eyes--there before the agent and Harriet. I saw Harriet lift one hand and drop it hopelessly. She thought I was captured at last. I was past saving. And as I looked at the agent I saw "grim conquest glowing in his eye!" So I sat down not a little embarrassed by my exhibition--when I had intended to be self-poised. "You like it, don't you?" said Mr. Dixon unctuously. "I don't see," I said earnestly, "how you can afford to sell such things as this so cheap." "They are cheap," he admitted regretfully. I suppose he wished he had tried me with the half-morocco. "They are priceless," I said, "absolutely priceless. If you were the only man in the world who had that poem, I think I would deed you my farm for it." Mr. Dixon proceeded, as though it were all settled, to get out his black order book and open it briskly for business. He drew his fountain pen, capped it, and looked up at me expectantly. My feet actually seemed slipping into some irresistible whirlpool. How well he understood practical psychology! I struggled within myself, fearing engulfment: I was all but lost.