They will help our color scheme. That pale blue doesn't blend
well in our rainbow--put it in your pocket and wear it, with my
compliments; and those tan shoes are not bad for the Virginia mud--drop
them here. Those gray campaign hats are comfortable--give the oldest to
me. And there is a riding-cloak I had forgotten I ever owned--I gave gold
for it to a Madrid tailor. The mountain nights are cool, and the thing
may serve me well," he added whimsically.
He clapped on the hat and flung the cloak upon his shoulders. It fell to
his heels, and he gathered it together with one hand at the waist and
strutted out into the hall, whither Oscar followed, staring, as Armitage
began to declaim:
"'Give me my robe; put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me!'
"'Tis an inky cloak, as dark as Hamlet's mind; I will go forth upon a
bloody business, and who hinders me shall know the bitter taste of death.
Oscar, by the faith of my body, you shall be the Horatio of the tragedy.
Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await
the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void,
and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! And now--
"'Nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
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