In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the
shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket,
rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the
labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie's _New Commercial
Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them
side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face,
read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his
ear.
"What wonder of Heaven's coming now?" I thought.
"Manna--manna--manna," he said at last, under wrinkled brows. "That's what
I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that's good!"
His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:--
Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.
He repeated it once more, using "blander" for "smoother" in the second
line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
missed no stroke of any word) he substituted "soother" for his atrocious
second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in
the book--as it is written in the book.
A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
followed a spurt and rattle of rain.
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