Windsor Magazine/Volume 58/The Dog and the Dragon in Reminiscence

THE DOG AND THE DRAGON IN REMINISCENCE By HUGH WALPOLE

RACHEL SEDDON sat on the fourth floor of the Titan Hotel in New York, trying to read Marquette's "Humpty Dumpty."
The heavy, clumsy volume fell on to her lap, and she turned her eyes to the window. In the light of the spring afternoon—apricot purple-tinted—the cars buried deep in the black-shadowed canyon of Fifth Avenue looked, from where she sat, like a vast army of black slugs waiting for an order from some officer. The traffic lights, watchful eyes of red or green, suddenly changed. Across the ribbons of street numbers of little black figures scurried in fear for their little lives; the lights changed again, and slowly the army moved forward, bent on its secret, inevitable purpose.
Rachel, tired of the muddied contents of Mr. Dumpty's mind, stared about the pretty pink-and-white, soulless room. The room was close and heavy with the scent of flowers. The windows could not be opened because the noise from the street was so great. On the table were several brightly-bound volumes, not foolish, either—the last word in culture, perhaps—young Mr. Eliot's 'Waste Land," old Mr. Pound's collected verse, the poems of Edna St. Vince

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