Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/42

Once more to glimpse her happy face,
And while my rhymes of cheer I’m ringing,
Across the sunny sweep of space
To hear her singing, singing, singing.

Heigh ho! I realize I am very weary. It’s nice to be so tired, and to know one can sleep as long as one wants. The morning sunlight floods in at my window, so I draw the blind, and throw myself on my bed….

IV

My Garret, Montparnasse,
April.

Hurrah! As I opened my eyes this morning to a hard, unfeeling world, little did I think what a surprise awaited me. A big blue envelope had been pushed under my door. Another rejection, I thought, and I took it up distastefully. The next moment I was staring at my first cheque.

It was an express order for two hundred francs, in payment of a bit of verse…. So to-day I will celebrate. I will lunch at the D’Harcourt, I will dine on the Grand Boulevard, I will go to the theater.

Well, here’s the thing that has turned the tide for me. It is somewhat in the vein of “Sourdough” Service, the Yukon bard. I don’t think much of his stuff, but they say he makes heaps of money. I can well believe it, for he drives a Hispano-Suiza in the Bois every afternoon. The other night he was with a crowd at the Dome Café, a chubby chap who sits in a corner and seldom speaks. I was dis-