XV
DISCLOSURES
Sleep is a potent medicine for the mind; but sometimes the potion is
compounded with somewhat too heavy a proportion of dreams and nonsense;
when it's apt to play curious tricks with returning consciousness. When Whitaker
awoke he was on the sands of Narragansett, and the afternoon was cloudy-warm
and bright, so that his eyes were grateful for the shade of a white parasol that a
girl he knew was holding over him; and his age was eighteen and his cares they
were none; and the girl was saying in a lazy, laughing voice: "I love my love with a P because he's Perfectly Pulchritudinous and Possesses the Power of Pleasing, and because he Prattles Prettily and his socks are Peculiarly Purple—"
"And," the man who'd regained his youth put in, "his name is Peter and he's Posit
