It
seemed to me like some monstrous upheaval of madness. But I suppose
the truth is painfully simple. There is such a thing as the
coarseness of a gentleman. And it is the most horrible thing in
humanity."
"I know," said Fisher. "The Renaissance nobles of the Tudor time
were like that."
"It is odd that you should say that," Crane went on. "For while we
were talking there came on me a curious feeling that we were
repeating some scene of the past, and that I was really some outlaw,
found in the woods like Robin Hood, and that he had really stepped
in all his plumes and purple out of the picture frame of the
ancestral portrait. Anyhow, he was the man in possession, and he
neither feared God nor regarded man. I defied him, of course, and
walked away. I might really have killed him if I had not walked
away."
"Yes," said Fisher, nodding, "his ancestor was in possession and he
was in possession, and this is the end of the story. It all fits
in."
"Fits in with what?" cried his companion, with sudden impatience. "I
can't make head or tail of it. You tell me to look for the secret in
the hole in the wall, but I can't find any hole in the wall."
"There isn't any," said Fisher. "That's the secret." After
reflecting a moment, he added: "Unless you call it a hole in the
wall of the world.
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