When one won't win

Blanksby pottered interminably behind the desk, muttering incomprehensibilities to himself. Ostriches, long since dead, plumed arrogantly at the wakening dawn.
  Who was he? they asked.
  Merely himself, vaguely did the docket reply.
Yet still the rumbling continued, transitory as eternal stone, endless as the ephemeral winds. Oh, how they screeched! It was delightful! No, more than delightful! It was horrible!
  Harrumph came the desk-hidden grunt of a suddenly eloquent Blanksby, I needed two...