A Diversity of Creatures/The Edge of the Evening

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The Edge of the Evening
(1913)
Ah! What avails the classic bent,
   And what the chosen word,
Against the undoctored incident
   That actually occurred?

And what is Art whereto we press
   Through paint and prose and rhyme—
When Nature in her nakedness
   Defeats us every time?

'Hi! Hi! Hold your horses! Stop! . . . Well! Well!' A lean man in a sable-lined overcoat leaped from a private car and barred my way up Pall Mall. 'You don't know me? You're excusable. I wasn't wearing much of anything last time we met—in South Africa.'
The scales fell from my eyes, and I saw him once more in a sky-blue army shirt, behind barbed wire, among Dutch prisoners bathing at Simonstown, more than a dozen years ago.[1] 'Why, it's Zigler—Laughton O. Zigler!' I cried, 'Well, I am glad to see you.'
​'Oh no! You don't work any of your English on me. "So glad to see you, doncher know—an' ta-ta!" Do you reside in this village?'
'No. I'm up here buying stores.'
'Then you take my automobile. Where to? . . . Oh, I know them! My Lord Marshalton is one of the Directors. Pigott, drive to the Army and Navy Co-operative Supply Association Limited, Victoria Street, Westminister.'
He settled h

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