THE EQUINOX
Looking-Glass; but he was in any case not there, being busy
in working out by applied mathematics the problem as to
which public man was worthiest of a biography in his columns
next week.
The words " blasphemous orgie ” altogether fail to give any
idea of what occurred.
“Twenty-eight naked demi-mondaines now brimmed the
buckets with satyrion," hardly describes it.
“These loathsome and abominable creatures next aban—
doned themselves to frenzied scenes unparalleled in Degenerate
Rome,” conveys an altogether false impression.
Only my own pen can describe it accurately; and I sup-
pose the printer will refuse to set it up, and very likely
telephone the Public Prosecutor.
However, I shall try and
sneak it through in Ciceronian Latin.
Crowleius dixit: Quid circa—(what on earth’s the Latin
for “tea”?)?
Omnes biberunt.
(There must be some concealed horror in these words.
It
aþþaïmtly means “ Crowley said—what about tea?
They all
drank."
With this reservation we prepare to fly to Ostend,
but print it.
Printer.)
The good news ran through London like wildfire, doing
every hundred yards in even time.
Ralph Shirley, stirring uneasily in his office chair, stroked
his pet rhinoceros, and murmured “ Piles 0’ money”; Leopold
Rothschild asked if the zebra could indeed change his stripes;
and although ninety and nine just persons that needed no
repentance
had that very minute
been presented to the
angels in heaven, the subject was completely forgotten in the
exuberance of the higher joy.
24o