"The fact is, until you mentioned
it yourself, it never occurred to me that there was much fun in any
portion of the Trojan incident, excepting perhaps the delirium tremens of
old Laocoon, who got no more than he deserved for stealing my thunder. I
had warned Troy against the Greeks, and they all laughed at me, and said
my eye to the future was strabismatic; that the Greeks couldn't get into
Troy at all, even if they wanted to. And then the Greeks made a great
wooden horse as a gift for the Trojans, and when I turned my X-ray gaze
upon it I saw that it contained about six brigades of infantry, three
artillery regiments, and sharp-shooters by the score. It was a sort of
military Noah's Ark; but I knew that the prejudice against me was so
strong that nobody would believe what I told them. So I said nothing. My
prophecies never came true, they said, failing to observe that my warning
as to what would be was in itself the cause of their non-fulfilment. But
desiring to save Troy, I sent for Laocoon and told him all about it, and
he went out and announced it as his own private prophecy; and then, having
tried to drown his conscience in strong waters, he fell a victim to the
usual serpentine hallucination, and everybody said he wasn't sober, and
therefore unworthy of belief. The horse was accepted, hauled into the
city, and that night orders came from hindquarters to the regiments
concealed inside to march.
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