THE SKEWBALD PANTHER[1]
HIS face was the face of a man glad all through. He was standing, his knees against the coping of the inner wall. He looked down into the deserted arena, across it, at the great sweeping curve of tier above tier of blank, tenantless, stone benches and up at the sagging, saucered, spider-web of radiating or cross-knotted guy-ropes. Far away on the opposite side of the amphitheater several workmen were busy with those same guy-ropes, had flung some temporary tackle over one of them and were hoisting up a boy to make repairs or adjustments; otherwise the Colosseum was empty save for himself. He had the air of a man enjoying its emptiness. The sun had risen but a few moments before and its slant rays struck on the gayly painted awning-poles and on their gilded ropes. The interior of the building was coolish with the dawn-chill of masonry grown cold under autumn stars, and he kept his new, white, crimson-edged toga wrapped about him, both his arms under it to the wrists. Yet he snuffed joyously at the early air and breathed long breaths of its
- ↑ Originally published in The Popular Magazine.
