At this moment one of these, bursting over his head, turned
into a large bright moon; and Mr. Lavender saw to his amazement that
the bubbles were really butterflies, perched on the liquid moonlit mud,
fluttering their crimson wings, and peering up at him with tiny human
faces. "Who are you?" he cried; "oh! who are you?" The butterflies
closed their wings; and on each of their little faces came a look so
sad and questioning that Mr. Lavender's tears rolled down into his
breastplate of speeches. A whisper rose from them. "We are the dead."
And they flew up suddenly in swarms, and beat his face with their wings.
Mr. Lavender woke up sitting in the middle of the floor, with light
shining in on him through a hole in the curtain, and Blink licking off
the tears which were streaming down his face.
"Blink," he said, "I have had a horrible dream." And still conscious of
that weight on his chest, as of many undelivered speeches, he was
afraid to go back to bed; so, putting on some clothes, he went carefully
downstairs and out of doors into the morning. He walked with his
dog towards the risen sun, alone in the silvery light of Hampstead,
meditating deeply on his dream. "I have evidently," he thought, "not yet
acquired that felicitous insensibility which is needful for successful
public speaking.
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