"Still, it may help," said Huddy Rivers. "I read a poem in a magazine the other day on 'Mystery.' And if it hadn't had a title I'd never have understood it. It ran this way: "Life, what art thou? Whence springest thou? The past, the future, or the now? Whence comes thy lowering lunacy? Whence comes thy mizzling mystery? Hast thou a form, a shape, a lineament? Hast thou a single seraph-eyed medicament To ease our sorrow and our twitching woe? Hast thou one laudable Alsatian glow To compensate, commensurate, and condign For all these dastard, sleekish qualms of mine? Hast thou indeed an abject agate plot To show that what exists is really not? Or art thou just content to sit and say Life's but a specious, coral roundelay?" "I committed the thing to memory because it struck me as being a good thing to remember--it was so full of good phrases. 'Twitching woe,' for instance, and 'sleekish qualms,'" he continued. "Quaking qualms would have been better," put in Tenafly Paterson, who judged poetry from an alliterative point of view. "Nevertheless, I liked sleekish qualms," retorted Huddy. "Quaking qualms might be more alliterative, but sleekish qualms is _less_ commonplace." "No doubt," said Tenafly. "I never had 'em myself, so I'll take your word for it. But what do you make out of 'coral roundelay'?" "Nothing at all," said Huddy. "I don't bother my head about 'coral roundelay' or 'seraph-eyed medicament.' I haven't wasted an atom of my gray matter on 'lowering lunacy' or 'agate plot' or 'mizzling mystery.' And all because the poet gave his poem a title. He called the thing 'Mystery,' and when I had read it over half a dozen times I concluded that he was right; and if the thing remained a mystery to the author, I don't see why a reader should expect ever to be able to understand it." "Very logical conclusion, Huddy," said Billy Jones, approvingly. "If a poet chooses a name for his poem, you may make up your mind that there is good reason for it, and certainly the verses you have recited about the 'coral roundelay' are properly designated." "Well, I'd like to have the title of that yard of rhyme Haarlem Bridge just recited," put in Dobbs Ferry, scratching his head in bewilderment. "It strikes me as being quite as mysterious as Huddy's. What the deuce can a man mean by referring to an 'auburn-haired Sarcophagus'?" "It wasn't auburn-haired," expostulated Haarlem. "It was argent-browed." "Old Sarcophagus had nickel-plated eyebrows, Dobby," cried Tom Snobbe, forgetting himself for a moment. "Well, who the dickens was old Sarcophagus?" queried Dobby, unappeased. "He was one of the Egyptian kings, my dear boy," vouchsafed Billy Jones, exploding internally with mirth. "You've heard of Augustus Cæsar, haven't you?" "Yes," said Dobby.