Touchstone (Meridian Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

either one
of you gentlemen,” he began, trying to find a way out of his dilemma.
    “Not a word of it, Mr.
Nordhausen,” Wilde interjected. “You are our Everyman. After all, if my Art
does not bring you to want to go to Heaven, I am a failed craftsman.”  He
looked at Gilbert. “The stakes?”
    “The next round.”
    “The terms?”
    “Five minutes by Mr.
Nordhausen’s watch. The first to recite, by coin toss.”
    “Agreed.” Gilbert pulled out a large
silver coin. “Your call, Mr. Wilde.”
    “Heads, Mr. Gilbert, I am ever
the optimist, and hope to see our beloved monarch’s face on every toss!”
    Gilbert tossed, and caught the
coin. “Heads it is, Mr. Wilde. Shall we retire to our corners for the bout? Mr.
Nordhausen, this snifter shall be the bell.” He gave it a tap with his nail and
it rang. “Five minutes, Mr. Wilde.”
    “Have at you, Mr. Gilbert.”
    “Geshundheit, Mr. Wilde.”
    Nordhausen fumbled about in a
near panic. He remembered the pocket watch he had purchased from a curio shop
in preparation for this trip and managed to pull it from his coat pocket,
relieved that he had the good sense to put it there when he changed into this
rented evening wear. Still, he struggled to contain a slight tremor in his hand
as he flipped it open and stared at the clock face. The magnitude of what he
was doing continued to press itself upon him, cruelly now, as the time piece
seemed to taunt him with every tick of the second hand.
    God, Oh God…were the seconds all
in order? Surely he was not here this evening on the night Wilde and Gilbert
decided to have this little contest. He was not the one to judge it. With every
tick he could almost hear the corresponding echo of a great hammer beating on
the Meridian of Time. Every word he spoke, every movement and gesture he made,
was altering the timeline now. His plan had already come unglued, and all
history, from this moment forward, would bear the stain of his willful and
headstrong folly. He was absolutely mortified, and he knew he deserved the
hardest lash that fate could deliver upon him, though he hoped, with all his
might, that these seemingly harmless moments would not wreak havoc in some
future time.
    But what was he to do? Should he
turn and rush away into the night and end the contamination here and now? A
scene like that would make quite a stir. Should he play out the game, extricate
himself as pleasantly as possible and then slip away? That course made more
sense to him. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and he swallowed hard
as the two men began to write.
    Wilde sat at their table, while
Gilbert retired to the bar. Wilde snatched a napkin, and drew a slim golden
pencil from his pocket and began to scribble. A small coterie had followed
Gilbert, and Nordhausen could hear muffled laughter from across the room.
Wilde’s junto was standing around him in silence, watching the Master work. He
scratched out lines in green pencil, sat back pensively, ran his fingers
through his long hair, wrote some more, crossed out the end of a line, closed
his eyes and steepled his fingers, wrote some more. He was a man in the grip of
a creative urge. To Nordhausen, he did not look like a man who was writing
comic verse. On the other hand, the hilarity from Gilbert’s group was various,
from chuckles, to snickers to howls.
    Gilbert was done. Nordhausen
said, “30 seconds, Mr. Wilde.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Nordhausen, I
shall be done presently.”
    At five minutes, Nordhausen
tapped the brandy snifter, and called, “Time, gentlemen.” The irony of his statement
remained his own private torment for the moment.
    Gilbert came back over and
settled himself in his chair. “Well, Oscar, what has the Muse of Comic Verse
dispatched into your noodle?”
    Wilde stood to declaim, his
right arm behind his back, his left holding the napkin. He smiled puckishly,
and began:
     
           I love to hear the spoken
word,
                   As long as