His father laughed again--roared. "One for you, my son! 'Standing aloof in giant ignorance!' I never knew these poets talked sense. Just describes you. Here, Bons, you go in for poetry. Put him through it, will you, while I fetch up the whisky?" "Yes, give me the Keats," said Mr. Bons. "Let him say his Keats to me." So for a few moments the wise man and the ignorant boy were left alone in the smoking-room. "'Standing aloof in giant ignorance, of thee I dream and of the Cyclades, as one who sits ashore and longs perchance to visit----'" "Quite right. To visit what?" "'To visit dolphin coral in deep seas,'" said the boy, and burst into tears. "Come, come! why do you cry?" "Because--because all these words that only rhymed before, now that I've come back they're me." Mr. Bons laid the Keats down. The case was more interesting than he had expected. "_You?_" he exclaimed, "This sonnet, _you_?" "Yes--and look further on: 'Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, and precipices show untrodden green.' It _is_ so, sir. All these things are true." "I never doubted it," said Mr. Bons, with closed eyes. "You--then you believe me? You believe in the omnibus and the driver and the storm and that return ticket I got for nothing and----" "Tut, tut! No more of your yarns, my boy. I meant that I never doubted the essential truth of Poetry. Some day, when you read more, you will understand what I mean." "But Mr. Bons, it _is_ so. There _is_ light upon the shores of darkness. I have seen it coming. Light and a wind." "Nonsense," said Mr. Bons. "If I had stopped! They tempted me. They told me to give up my ticket--for you cannot come back if you lose your ticket. They called from the river for it, and indeed I was tempted, for I have never been so happy as among those precipices. But I thought of my mother and father, and that I must fetch them. Yet they will not come, though the road starts opposite our house. It has all happened as the people up there warned me, and Mr. Bons has disbelieved me like every one else. I have been caned. I shall never see that mountain again." "What's that about me?" said Mr. Bons, sitting up in his chair very suddenly. "I told them about you, and how clever you were, and how many books you had, and they said, 'Mr. Bons will certainly disbelieve you.'" "Stuff and nonsense, my young friend. You grow impertinent. I--well--I will settle the matter. Not a word to your father. I will cure you. To-morrow evening I will myself call here to take you for a walk, and at sunset we will go up this alley opposite and hunt for your omnibus, you silly little boy." His face grew serious, for the boy was not disconcerted, but leapt about the room singing, "Joy! joy! I told them you would believe me. We will drive together over the rainbow. I told them that you would come." After all, could there be anything in the story? Wagner? Keats? Shelley? Sir Thomas Browne? Certainly the case was interesting.