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If it had not been for young Paterson, Rickman would have smiled too, even if he had been unable to sit still; for his vision of Fulcher pocketing the carefully selected praise intended for Paterson was purely and supremely comic; so delightful in fact, that he could have embraced Jewdwine for providing it.
But before that, long, long before, when he was an innocent schoolboy, Dicky had a pair of wings, dear little cherubic wings, that fluttered uneasily under his little jacket. Finally they dropped off and Dicky was much happier without them. Rickman used to say that if you stripped him you saw the marks of them still quite plainly; and Dicky was always stripping himself and showing them.
But there was something in him greater than his heart, his ambition, which was colossal. He meant, he always had meant, to be the founder of a great House, which should make the name of Rickman live after him. He aimed at nothing less than supremacy.
She was perfectly well aware of its delicacy and danger. Not for worlds would she have had Spinks guess that Rickman was still waiting for her decision. And yet, if Spinks referred rashly and without any preparation to the breaking off of the engagement, Rickman's natural reply would be that this was the first he had heard of it.
For then he was a modern poet, which in the best of circumstances is to be marked for suffering. And to Mr. Rickman circumstances had not been exactly kind. A modern poet, was he? One whom the gods torment with inspired and hopeless passion; a lover of his own "fugitive and yet eternal bride," the Helen of Homer, of Æschylus and Euripides, the Helen of Marlowe and Goethe, the Helen of them all.
He made the best terms he could; and the end of the interview found him retained on Mackinnon's staff as leader, writer and dramatic critic at a salary of two pounds ten a week. Mackinnon had offered two pounds, Rickman had held out for three, and they split the difference. As the poet left the room Mackinnon turned to his desk with a smile of satisfaction that seemed to illuminate the dome.
He would say nothing that would lend countenance to the extravagance of Maddox. There was really no room for fresh appreciation anywhere. He could not give blame where Hanson had given it; and Maddox had plastered every line with praise. He would have been the first to praise Rickman, provided that he was the first. Not that Jewdwine ever committed himself.
You wouldn't exactly refuse three hundred and fifty; but a beggar must be brought pretty low to be crumpled up in that way by the mere mention of the sum. Maddox was not aware that no other combination of figures could have excited precisely those emotions; three hundred and fifty being the exact sum that Rickman needed for the accomplishment of his purpose.
She's going to be married this autumn; and if you looked sharp, you might get her berth." "In a wine-merchant's shop? Mr. Rickman wouldn't hear of it." "It isn't a shop, you know, it's an office. You ask him." Flossie did not ask him; she knew a trick worth two of that. But not very long after Mr.
He stood on the edge of the esplanade as on a railway platform, reading the paper and smoking a cigar. From time to time, looking up with an expression half visionary, half voluptuous, he puffed and spat in dreamy rhythmic sequence. "Coelum, non animam," said Rickman to himself, "they change their skies, but not their habits."
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