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"I deplore the circumstance that I am not overwhelmed by the revelation," John Bulmer said, as he dismounted, "and I entreat you to bear in mind, friend Achille, that in Poictesme I am a stranger. And, unhappily, the names of many estimable persons have not an international celebrity." Thus speaking, he drew and placed himself on guard.
" So, as you tell me, you came into Provence: and, as there is no need to tell me, I hope, who have still two eyes in my head, you have achieved the adventure. And why do you keep telling me about matters with which I am as well acquainted as you are?" "But, King of Arles, how do you know that this is not an ordinary feather?" "Count of Poictesme, do people anywhere ?"
Like Alpha Gartner, the sun of Poictesme, and Beta Gartner, a buckshot-sized pink glow in the southeast, and Gamma Gartner, out of sight on the other side of the world, all named for old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical adventurer whose ship had been the first to approach the three stars and discover that each of them had planets.
Only about ten per cent of the arable land on Poictesme will grow wine-melons. And if we start exporting Federation salvage the way you talk of, we'll be selling pieces instead of job lots. We'll net more, but " "That's just to get us started. The ships will be used, after that, to get to Tubal-Cain and Hiawatha and the planets of the Beta and Gamma Systems.
For I am that Manuel whom men call the Redeemer of Poictesme, and my deeds will be the themes of harpers whose grandparents are not yet born; I have known love and war and all manner of adventure: but all the sighings and hushed laughter of yesterday, and all the trumpet-blowing and shouting, and all that I have witnessed of the unreticent fond human ways of great persons who for the while have put aside their state, and all the good that in my day I may have done, and all the evil that I have certainly destroyed, all this seems trivial as set against the producing of this tousled brat.
"Mundus decipit, Count," they told him, "is the old pious motto of Poictesme: it signifies that the affairs of this world are a vain fleeting show, and that terrestrial appearances are nowhere of any particular importance." "Then your motto is green inexperience," said Manuel, "and for me to bear it would be black ingratitude."
Behind him was Grandfather Death on the white horse, carrying the Count's grave-clothes in a neat bundle. They rode toward the sunset, and against the yellow sunset each figure showed jet black. And thereafter Count Manuel was seen no more in Poictesme, nor did anyone ever know certainly whither he journeyed.
"Eh, that is the true panacea for faintness for every ill. Come, we will drink to the most beautiful woman in Poictesme nay, I am too modest, to the most beautiful woman in France, in Europe, in the whole universe! Feriam sidera, my father! and confound all mealy-mouthed reticence, for you have both seen her. Confess, am I not a lucky man? Come, Vanringham, too, shall drink. No glasses?
Poictesme appears a somewhat too romantic country for unaccompanied women to traverse in any comfort." "My thought to a comma," the Dominican put in, "unaccompanied ladies do not ordinarily drop from the forest oaks like acorns. I said as much to Cazaio a half-hour ago.
Oh, a great deal more in common, said these gossips, than the poor vicomte ever suspected, as you can see for yourself. That was the extent of the scandal, now happily forgotten, which we must at outset agree to ignore. All this was in Poictesme, whither the young vicomte had come a-wooing the oldest daughter of the Comte de la Foret.
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