The Savannah morning news., 1903-08-16
CHAPTER ".
" BUT SPARE YOUR COUNTRY'S
FLAG"

"BUr SPARE YOUR COUNTRY'S
FLAG"
If ii De true that love is the great in
centive to the useless arts, the number
OF gentlemen who became poets for the
sake of Miss Betty Carewe need not be
considered extraordinary. OF all that
was written of her dancing, Tom Van
revel's lines I Danced With Her Be
meath the Lights" (which he certainly
had not done when he wrote them),
We're perhaps, next to Clailey Grays
in merit, though Tom burned his
rhymes after reading them to Charley.
Other troubadours were not so modest,
and the Rouen Journal found no lack
of tuneful offering. that spring, gen
erously printing all of it, even at the
period when it became epidemic. The
public had little difficulty in recogniz-
ing the work of Mr.. Francis Cheno-
weth in an Anonymous Sonnet OF
twenty three lines), which appeared in
the issue following Miss carewe's de-
but. Mr.. Chenoweth wrote that while
dancing the mazourka with Lovely
Being, the sweetest feelings OF MS
soul, in a celestial stream, bore him
away beyond control, In a seraphic
dream; and he untruthfully stated that
at the same time he saw her wipe the
silent tear, emitting. however, to ven
ture any explanation of the cause OF
her emotion. Old Gen. Trumble bold
ly signed his poem in full. 1t was
called AN Ode Upon Miss C--'s
Waiting" and it began:
when Bettina found fair Rouen's
shore,
And her aged father to us bore
Her from the cloister neat,
She waltzed upon the ban room floor,
And lightly twirled upon her feet"
Mr.. Carewe was rightfully indignant,
and refused to acknowledge the Cen
erals salutation at their next meeting.
Trumble was fifteen years older than
he
rs Crailey Gray never danced with
Miss CareWe, it is somewhat singular
that she should have been the inspira-
ton of his swinging verses in waltz
measure, 'Heart-strings on a Violin,
the sense of which was that when
violin had played for her dancing, the
instrument should be shattered as
wine-g glasses are after a great toast.
However. no one, except the author
himself, knew that Betty was the SUBJ
ject; for Crailey certainly did not men
llOli IL 10 MISS IDdlGduus llOA " his
best friend, Vanrevel.
1t was to some degree a strange
comradeship between these two young
men, their tastes led them so often
in opposite directions. They had rooms
together over their offices in the Mad
rillon Black, on Mains treet, and the
lights shone late from their windows
every night in the year. Sometimes
that would mean only that the two
friends were talking, for they meyer
reached a silent intimacy, but, even
after several years of companionship,
were rarely seen together when not in
interested, often eager, converse ton,
so that people wondered what in the
world they still found to say to each
other. But many a night the late
shining lamp meant that Tom sat
alone, with a brief or a book, or wooed
the lorn hours with his magical guitar.
For he never went to bed until the
other came home. And if daylight came
without Craney, Nanrevel would go
out, yawning nightly. to look for him;
and when there was no finding him,
Tom would come back, sleepless. to the
days work. -a-- -~4. ~,
-Crailey was called peculiar" and
he explained. with a kind OF jovial
helplessness, that he was always pre-
pared for the unexpected in himself
nor did such a view detract from his
picturesqueness to his own perusal of
himself though II was not only to
himself that he was interesting. To
the vision of the lookers-on in Rouen
quiet souls who lowered along the
walls at merry markings and cheerfully
counted themselves spectators at the
play Crailey Gray held the center of
the stage and was the chief comedian
of the place. Wit. poet and scape-
grace. the small society sometimes
seemed the mere background set for
his performances, spectacles which he,