Bertram Rota was a London bookseller, specializing in modern literature. Together with his son Tony he developed the University of Texas as a client and became friends with a number of like-minded folks in Austin through his annual trips to visit the University. Among them were Austin book seller Franklin Gilliam, Warren Roberts, then the Associate Director of the Humanities Research Center, John Henry Faulk, Bill Ferguson and Frank Dobie.
In 1960 Rota spent a memorable evening at Dobie’s Paisano ranch with this august group of bookmen. He recorded the highlights in a pamphlet entitled “The Night of the Armadillos” that he sent out as a Christmas card. Few copies crossed the Atlantic and Dobie’s friend and bookman Jeff Dykes listed it as one of the fifty rarest Dobie items. Dobie inscribed a copy “For my paisano and amigo Jeff Dykes who understands poetic license.”
Rota followed up the publication of his Christmas pamphlet with a letter to Dobie about the evening and adding to the tale told therein. Dobie gave a copy of the letter to Warren Roberts, with his note that it made a postscript to “The Night of the Armadillos.” It is reproduced here as a fitting coda to this legendary Dobie rarity.
January l4. 1961
Dear Sage,
Your acceptance of my strictly factual report on the night of nights delighted me. But tell Edward Soph that “The Night of the Armadillos” is a much better title than “A Night Among the Armadillos.” The former makes the night unique, as it is in my memory. The latter could be any old night. Before that evening was over I knew I must write the story and that “The Night of the Armadillos” was the inevitable title.
Harry Graham’s “Elsie Gloy” has 22 eight-line verses. To quote them in full would have overweighed my little booklet, but you shall have the complete version. It was first printed in “Life and Letters” Vol 5, No. 27, for August 1930. Later it was included, I think, in a book of Harry Graham’s verse, which I will try to find for you. Meanwhile here is one more verse, to go on with:
“An artist he, in velvet cape
With palate, oils and brushes
Who wished to paint an aquascape
And, noticing a female shape
Entangled in the rushes,
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large and smooth and round.”
And another:
That is the life she loves to lead
As Queen of all Bohemia.
Her courtiers may belong, indeed,
To what is called the ‘Weldflow’r breed,
And suffer from anemia,
But still her heart with pleasure thrills
When dancing with those daffodils.
There is, however, one grave error of misquotation in my booklet. I wrote “With the poet I could sing” and then misquoted some lines of Kipling — even though I gave them just as I heard them long ago. They should read:
“I’ve never seen a jaguar
Nor yet an armadil –
O delloing in his armor
And I spose I never will.”
Much better. There have been requests for extra copies, for inclusion in Dobie collections in university libraries, from Larry Powell and others; but I have a few spares and send you three more at once. I’m flattered.
Did I tell you I’ve ordered “The Ghost Bull of the Mavericks,” so that I may refresh my memory of your treasured tones and share my delight with my friends? And that story of my night at Paisano has had a wonderful reception from all points of the compass. A friend writes from Wilmington, Delaware, to-day to tell me that there is a different formula for each species of cricket, when calculating the temperature from the frequency of the chirping!
How earnestly I hope to come to Texas again next Fall, though Anthony and I won’t be able to be away from London together.
Good luck, good health, good hunting!
Your eternally grateful
Bertram