]
NAPOLEON (with sudden gloom)
These mindless games are very well, my friend;
But ours to-night marks, not improbably,
The last we play together.
JOSEPHINE (starting)
Can you say it!
Why raise that ghastly nightmare on me now,
When, for a moment, my poor brain had dreams
Denied it all the earlier anxious day?
NAPOLEON
Things that verge nigh, my simple Josephine,
Are not shoved off by wilful winking at.
Better quiz evils with too strained an eye
Than have them leap from disregarded lairs.
JOSEPHINE
Maybe 'tis true, and you shall have it so!--
Yet there's no joy save sorrow waived awhile.
NAPOLEON
Ha, ha! That's like you. Well, each day by day
I get sour news. Each hour since we returned
From this queer Spanish business at Bayonne,
I have had nothing else; and hence by brooding.
JOSEPHINE
But all went well throughout our touring-time?
NAPOLEON
Not so--behind the scenes. Our arms a Baylen
Have been smirched badly. Twenty thousand shamed
All through Dupont's ill-luck! The selfsame day
My brother Joseph's progress to Madrid
Was glorious as a sodden rocket's fizz!
Since when his letters creak with querulousness.
"Napoleon el chico" 'tis they call him--
"Napoleon the Little," so he says.
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