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304 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
patients were allowed to visit afield and create conspiracies in other
wards, the doctors would soon be encased in their own straitjackets,
as has been so delightfully depicted in a story by Edgar
Allan Poe. It is possible that Poe was inspired to write this story
after visiting some institution like St. Elizabeths, although that
particular Bedlam was not standing in his own day. I was reminded
of this tale whenever I went out there, and I avoided
looking at the doctors, lest one of them should turn out to be a
madman in disguise. Anyone planning to visit a madhouse should
avoid reading the Poe story.
I said nothing to Ezra about Rex's status, as I wanted them to
enjoy each other's company, and I knew that Ezra would be upset
by any new infraction of the rules. They were two of a kind, having
known and viewed the world's great with a jaundiced eye.
Rex's taste in poetry had never advanced beyond George Sterling,
and he said that although Pound seemed sane enough, the Cantos
were certainly crazy.
Soon Rex began to visit Pound every afternoon. He was able
to tell many inside stories about Washington between the wars.
His story of Henry Morgenthau's campaign against the pigeons on
the Treasury Building is one of the great sagas of Sodom on the
Potomac. He is quoted in "Canto 97" of Thrones:
And he, the president, is true to his caste
"and that caste," said old Lampman, "the underworld."
This passage is followed by a comment on the early career of
another great American president:
"I am sorry,"
Said the London judge, "that this has been brought as a civil
and not as a criminal action." 3
The reference here is to a sixty-million-dollar theft, which set
off the Boxer Rebellion in China.
One afternoon, Rex brought along another friend of his, a
Panamanian palmist. Like most people in Washington, the Panamanian
had come there to recoup his fortunes at the expense of