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Mr. van Koppen, like all the rest, knew what hard times he had gone through; how, born of an ancient and wealthy family, he had not hesitated to sell his wonderful collection of antiques together with all but a shred of his ancestral estates, in order to redeem the gambling debts of a brother. That amounted to quixotism, they declared.
It was understood, none the less, that Count Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the accumulation of classical relics which the Italian Government forbidding the export of antique works of art were smuggled at night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people.
He could not tell the difference between the art of Clodion and of Myron had, in fact, never heard the names of these good people and did not particularly care to hear them; he paid Sir Herbert Street for that part of the business. But he had picked up, in the course of his long humanitarian career, a good deal of general knowledge. Old Koppen was no fool.
A committee of ladies and gentlemen collected a certain small amount, but their hopes did not rise high till the day when the Duchess broached the subject to her countryman, Mr. van Koppen, after inveigling him into what she called "a friendly teat-a-teat." Surfeited to bursting-point with his favourite tea-cakes, the millionaire was in a lovely humour.
"We had cut the dyke in three places," said he; "but left it most shamefully for want of commandment." Poor Koppen Loppen whose blunders on former occasions had caused so much disaster was now fortunate enough to expiate them by a soldier's death. Admiral Haultain had, as we have seen, been drowned at the commencement of the action.
All of which, far from extinguishing, actually fostered that queer bachelor's feeling of reverential awe for the married state and its results. Every form of courage and success appealed to van Koppen none more than the reckless impetuosity of a man who speculates in such a delirious lottery and sometimes actually draws a prize. Such had been Count Caloveglia's portion.
Your ethics are stereotyped in black-letter characters. A gargoyle morality." "It is certainly difficult," said Mr. van Koppen, "for an Anglo-Saxon to appraise this book objectively. His mind has been saturated with it in childhood to such an extent as to take on a definite bias." "Like the ancients with their ILIAD. Where is a truer poet than Homer?
It was a greeting from an unknown friend in an unknown land; something familiar from the dim past or distant future; something that spoke of well-being plain to behold, hard to expound, like the dawning smile of childhood. Towards evening, Mr. van Koppen drove the bishop down in the carriage which he usually hired for the whole of his stay on Nepenthe.
A very up-to-date nomad, who takes the whole world for his camping-ground. No, not yet. But he'll turn up in a day or two." Count Caloveglia was concerned, just then, about Mr. van Koppen. He had a little business to transact with him he fervently hoped that the millionaire would not forgo his annual visit to Nepenthe. "I shall be glad to meet him again," he remarked carelessly.
Koppen, F.T., on the migratory locust. Koraks, marriage customs of. Kordofan, protuberances artificially produced by natives of. Korte, on the proportion of sexes in locusts; Russian locusts. Kovalevsky, A., on the affinity of the Ascidia to the Vertebrata. Kovalevsky, W., on the pugnacity of the male capercailzie; on the pairing of the capercailzie.
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