And hence it is this animal, Of which I sing my song, This creature reprehensible, Is held by persons sensible Responsible for wrong. So if a friend or foe you see Departing from his aim, Be full, I pray, of charity-- He may have met the Quandary, And so is not to blame." "That is very pretty," said Jimmieboy, as the major finished; "but, do you know, major, I don't understand one word of it." Much to Jimmieboy's surprise the major was pleased at this remark. "Thank you, Jimmieboy," he said. "That proves that I am a true poet. I think there's some meaning in those lines, but it's so long since I wrote them that I have forgotten exactly what I did mean, and it's that very thing that makes a poem out of the verses. Poetry is nothing but riddles in rhyme. You have to guess what is meant by the lines, and the harder that is, the greater the poem." "But I don't see much use of it," said Jimmieboy. "Riddles are fun sometimes, but poetry isn't." "That's very true," said the major. "But poetry has its uses. If it wasn't for poetry, the poets couldn't make a living, or if they did, they'd have to go into some other business, and most other businesses are crowded as it is." "Do people ever make a living writing poetry?" Jimmieboy asked. "Once in a while. I knew a man once who did. He called himself the Grocer-Poet, because he was a grocer in the day-time and a poet at night. He sold every poem he wrote, too," said the major. "To a newspaper?" asked Jimmieboy. "Oh, no," said the major. "He bought 'em from himself. When he'd wake up in the morning as a grocer he'd read what he had written the night before as a poet, and then he'd buy the verses from himself and throw them into the fire. But to return to the Quandary. He has awfully bad manners. He stares you right in the face whenever he meets you, and no matter what you want to do he tries to force you to do the other thing. The only way to escape him is not to do anything, but go back where you started from, and begin all over again." "Where did you meet him?" asked Jimmieboy. "Where? Why, where he's always met, of course, at a fork in the road. That's where he gets in his fine work," said the major. "Suppose, for instance, you were out for a stroll, and you thought you'd like to go--well, say to Calcutta. You stroll along, and you stroll along, and you stroll along. Then you come to a place where the road splits, one half going to the right and one to the left, or, if you don't like right and left, we'll say one going to Calcutta by way of Cape Horn, and the other going to Calcutta by way of Greenland's icy mountains." "It's a long walk either way," said Jimmieboy.