Noon
interposed Zabastes grimly . `` For when a bard begins to gabble goose-like platitudes which merely concern his own vocation , the gods only know when he can be persuaded to stop ! Nay , 't is more irksome far than the recitation of his professional jingle -- for to that there must in time come a merciful fitting end , but , as I live , if 't was my custom to say prayers , I would pray to be delivered from the accursed volubility of a versifier 's tongue ! And perchance it will not be considered out of my line of duty if I venture to remind my most illustrious and renowned MASTER -- '' this with a withering sneer , -- `` that if he has any more remarkable nothings to dictate concerning this particularly inane creation of his fancy ` Nourhalma , ' ` twill be well that we should proceed therewith , for the hours wax late and the sun veereth toward his House of Noon . '' And he spread out fresh slips of papyrus and again prepared his long quill . Sah-luma smiled , as one who is tolerant of the whims of a hired buffoon , -- and , this time seating himself in his ebony chair , was about to commence dictating his Second Canto when Theos , yielding to his desire to speak aloud the idea that had just flashed across his brain said abruptly : `` Has it ever seemed to thee , Sah-luma , as it now does to me , that there is a strange resemblance between thy imaginative description of the ideal ` Nourhalma , ' and the actual charms and virtues of thy strayed singing-maid Niphrata ? '' Sah-luma looked up , thoroughly astonished , and laughed .