hokuto

It is the duty of a poet to listen to the stories of others; and this poet was most eager in his duty. Wherever a story was told in his city, he was there, until he became drunk on monologues and intoxicated with outlandish fables, and then he would ask for another, and one more, and one more again. "I have a story for you," said his always-silent coachman, one night when the other pub regulars had run out, and the poet brightened at hearing his favorite words; "a story of foxes." --- No road led to the rocks, and no guide; the alderman of the town on the desert's edge gave him a lodestone and a lump of nickel and told him to keep the Grea