“I am not going to listen to that bloodthirsty hag,” whispered Cupid to Erato. He kissed her and passed out of the room. Erato was busy with the curious little silver brazier, from which the smoke began to ascend more quickly. Melpomene took a draught of her blood-and-seltzer, and began in a deep and husky voice:-- * * * * * A watchman stood on a lonely tower, looking eastward, and whistling “Wait till the clouds roll by,” shredding it in as a remedy against impatience. And that watchman was nothing if he was not classical. He pondered upon the history of the house. For the master was away from home, having gone to a lonely place not marked on the maps, in order to make atonement for his crime. Ten years before he had eaten a veal-and-ham pie, in which, owing to the inadvertence of the cook, his eldest daughter had taken the place of the veal-and-ham. And the cook’s carelessness had been entirely due to absence of mind: he was distraught because his son had just murdered his aunt, and the son had murdered the aunt because his mind was unhinged owing to a sudden depreciation in nitrates, which he had bought largely. And the gods had caused the nitrates to depreciate because one of the directors hadn’t sacrificed anything except one thigh slice, rather fat, for the last two years. And the director hadn’t sacrificed anything else, because he got his butcher’s meat under contract and the butcher had bilked him. And the butcher had been compelled to bilk him, because the gods had sent a murrain on all the cattle in the world, to punish one pig that they had a spite against. This was not quite the ordinary curse, descending from father to son with the silver spoons and the mortgages. It went zigzag, like a snipe. Many people had taken snap-shots at it with sacrifices, but they hadn’t been able to stop it. Nobody knew where that curse was going to next; so a general interest in it prevailed. Teiresias had taken a long prayer at it, just as it was hopping from the director to the cook’s family, and missed badly. And now the master of the watchman’s house--by name Eustinkides--had fired a ten-years’ penance at it. Some thought he’d hit it; others said it was lying low, and would get up again in a minute.