Although unable to comprehend the precise terms in which the goddess embodied her mandate, the despairing young man understood its purport only too well. In spite, however, of a sustained effort that approximated to real heroism, he had only swallowed half an oyster, two pieces of bread-and-butter, and sipped a small quantity of an ink-coloured beverage, of which the goddess availed herself freely, by the time Mr. James Dodson and the white-armed Hera had concluded their own exertions, which had appeared to afford them immense satisfaction. Thereupon the goddess conceived it to be her duty to hold each oyster in its turn on a fork and compel, by the exercise of her own imperious will, “the poet” to swallow these delicacies. When this task had been fulfilled she said, “Now, Alfred, set about that stout as if you meant it, and then I’ll touch Jimmy for a bob.” XXIX The reveller who crept back to 43 Milton Street, E.C., towards the hour of one was a dishevelled, bewildered human fragment in sore distress of mind and body. His head throbbed, and dreadful qualms oppressed him, but these were as nought in comparison with that which had already taken a sinister shape in his brain. Fate had made him a mock. He, to whom life was a sacrament, was unworthy to participate in this full-blooded, heroic, many-sided existence that was all about him. To what monstrous perversion of the faculties had he been subjected? The sea, the sky, the birds, the green fields, the wisdom and poetry of past ages, the intercourse with heroes and goddesses, could cast spells upon him which not even prayer could appease. Yet, what was this exaltation by comparison with that lusty, high-hearted genius which accepted all these incomparable things as neither more nor less than an immemorial right; a native arrogance that could defile the bosom of the sea, mutilate the fairest landscapes, poison the sky with the smoke of cities, wantonly destroy the glorious life that enriched the very air it breathed.