He was immensely
proud of the flotation. "They've never been given such value," he said,
"for a dozen years." But Ewart, with his gesticulating hairy hands and
bony wrists, his single-handed chorus to all this as it played
itself over again in my memory, and he kept my fundamental absurdity
illuminated for me during all this astonishing time.
"It's just on all fours with the rest of things," he remarked; "only
more so. You needn't think you're anything out of the way."
I remember one disquisition very distinctly. It was just after Ewart had
been to Paris on a mysterious expedition to "rough in" some work for
a rising American sculptor. This young man had a commission for an
allegorical figure of Truth (draped, of course) for his State Capitol,
and he needed help. Ewart had returned with his hair cut en brosse and
with his costume completely translated into French. He wore, I remember,
a bicycling suit of purplish-brown, baggy beyond ageing--the only
creditable thing about it was that it had evidently not been made for
him--a voluminous black tie, a decadent soft felt hat and several French
expletives of a sinister description.
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