No More Learning

Billy
Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It
was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We
didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to
make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised.

"'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communication
and see how you are working. ' Then he asks them about their villages,
and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick
and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with
the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country,'
says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier
guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled.
Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well,
and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white people--sons
of Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans. You are my people,
and, by God,' says he, running off into English at the end, 'I'll make a
damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making! '

"I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a
lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I
never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again
go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing,
and make 'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the
country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and
down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both
fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just
waited for orders.

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were
afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of
friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across
the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call
four priests together and say what was to be done.

"He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu,
and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough to his real
name,--and hold councils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done
in small villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of
Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot
of 'em they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men
carrying turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made
Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one
of the Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out
of their mouths for turquoises.

"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of
my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some
more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a
hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw
to six hundred yards, and forty man--loads of very bad ammunition for
the rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among
the men that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to
attend to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me,
and we turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred
that knew how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed,
hand-made guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about
powder-shops and factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when
the winter was coming on.

"'I won't make a Nation,' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These men
aren't niggers; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their
mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own
houses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grown
to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get
frightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. The
villages are full o' little children. Two million people--two hundred
and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the
rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready
to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey,
man,' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall be
Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to
us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me
twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit.
There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli--many's the good dinner
he's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the
Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if
I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man through
in the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from
the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all the
Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up
the Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting in
these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the
Amir's country in driblets,--I'd be content with twenty thousand in one
year,--and we'd be an Empire.

"When everything was shipshape I'd hand over the crown--this crown I'm
wearing now--to Queen Victoria on my knees, and she'd say, 'Rise up, Sir
Daniel Dravot. ' Oh, it's big! It's big, I tell you! But there's so much
to be done in every place--Bashkai, Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.

"'What is it? ' I says. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled
this autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow. '

"'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my
shoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no
other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you
have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know
you; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in
the way I want to be helped. '

"'Go to your blasted priests, then! ' I said, and I was sorry when I made
that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior,
when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me.

"'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' says Daniel, without cursing. 'You're
a King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see,
Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of 'em, that
we can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, and
I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all I
want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all. '

"He put half his beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his
crown.

"'I'm sorry, Daniel,' says I. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled
the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've
brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're
driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way. '

"'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The
winter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and if
they do we can't move about. I want a wife. '

"'For Gord's sake leave the women alone! ' I says. 'We've both got all
the work we can, though I am a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep
clear o' women. '"

"'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings
we have been these months past,' says Dravot, weighing his crown in his
hand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girl
that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English
girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot
water, and they'll come out like chicken and ham. '

"'Don't tempt me! ' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman,
not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been
doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three.
Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from
Afghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women. '"

"'Who's talking o' women? ' says Dravot. 'I said wife--a Queen to breed
a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that'll
make them your blood-brothers, and that'll lie by your side and tell
you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's what I
want. '

"'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was
a plate-layer? ' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me
the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away
with the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay. Then
she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the
impidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the
running-shed too! '

"'We've done with that,' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than you
or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months. '

"'For the last time o' asking, Dan, do not,' I says. 'It'll only bring
us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on
women, 'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over. '

"'For the last time of answering, I will,' said Dravot, and he went away
through the pine trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on
his crown and beard and all.

"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the
Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better
ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round.

"'What's wrong with me? ' he shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I
a dog, or am I not enough of a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the
shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid? '
It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your
guns? Who repaired the bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut
in the stone? ' says he, and he thumped his hand on the block that he
used to sit on in Lodge, and at Council, which opened like Lodge always.
Billy Fish said nothing, and no more did the others. 'Keep your hair
on, Dan,' said I, 'and ask the girls. That's how it's done at Home, and
these people are quite English. '

"'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,' says Dan, in a
white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against
his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat
still, looking at the ground.

"'Billy Fish,' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficulty
here? A straight answer to a true friend. '

"'You know,' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knows
everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not
proper. '

"I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us
as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me
to undeceive them.

"'A God can do anything,' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll
not let her die. ' 'She'll have to,' said Billy Fish. 'There are all
sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl
marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the
Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men
till you showed the sign of the Master. '

"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine
secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All
that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-way
down the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the
priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King.

"'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,' says Dan. 'I don't want to
interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife. ' 'The girl's a
little bit afraid,' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, and
they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple. '

"'Hearten her very tender, then,' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you with
the butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again. '

"He licked his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half
the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning.
I wasn't any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman
in foreign parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could
not but be risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was
asleep, and I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the
Chiefs talking together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of
their eyes.

"'What is up, Fish? ' I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his
furs and looking splendid to behold.

"'I can't rightly say,' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop all
this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a
great service. '

"'That I do believe,' says I. 'But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me,
having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more
than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I
do assure you. '

"'That may be,' says Billy Fish, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was. '
He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks.
'King,' says he, 'be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you today.
I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to
Bashkai until the storm blows over. '

"A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except
the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot
came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his
feet, and looking more pleased than Punch.

"'For the last time, drop it, Dan,' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fish
here says that there will be a row. '

"'A row among my people! ' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a fool
not to get a wife too. Where's the girl? ' says he, with a voice as loud
as the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and
let the Emperor see if his wife suits him. '

"There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their
guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot
of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the
horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as
close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with
matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and
behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a
strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white
as death, and looking back every minute at the priests.

"'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'What's to be afraid of, lass?
Come and kiss me. ' He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes,
gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan's
flaming-red beard.

"'The slut's bitten me! ' says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and,
sure enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his
matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into
the Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither God
nor Devil, but a man! ' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in
front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men.

"'God A'mighty! ' says Dan, 'what is the meaning o' this? '

"'Come back! Come away! ' says Billy Fish. 'Ruin and Mutiny is the
matter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can. '

"I tried to give some sort of orders to my men,--the men o' the regular
Army,--but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of 'em with an
English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was full
of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, 'Not a God
nor a Devil, but only a man! ' The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish all
they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabul
breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was bellowing like a bull,
for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent him
running out at the crowd.

"'We can't stand,' says Billy Fish. 'Make a run for it down the valley!
The whole place is against us. ' The matchlock-men ran, and we went down
the valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and crying
out that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, and
the regular Army fired hard, and there wasn't more than six men, not
counting Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of the
valley alive.

"Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again.

"'Come away--for Gord's sake come away! ' says Billy Fish.
'They'll send
runners out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can
protect you there, but I can't do anything now. "

"My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head from that hour.
He stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walking back
alone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could have
done. 'An Emperor am I,' says Daniel, 'and next year I shall be a Knight
of the Queen. '

"'All right, Dan,' says I; 'but come along now while there's time. '

"'It's your fault,' says he, 'for not looking after your Army better.
There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know--you damned
engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound! ' He sat
upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was
too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought
the smash.

"'I'm sorry, Dan,' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. This
business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we'll make something out of it yet,
when we've got to Bashkai. '

"'Let's get to Bashkai, then,' says Dan, 'and, by God, when I come
back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket
left! '

"We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down
on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself.

"'There's no hope o' getting clear,' said Billy Fish. 'The priests have
sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't
you stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man,' says
Billy Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to
his Gods.

"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no level
ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at Billy
Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never said
a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with
snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in
position waiting in the middle!

"'The runners have been very quick,' says Billy Fish, with a little bit
of a laugh. 'They are waiting for us. '

"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chance
shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses.
He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had
brought into the country.

"'We're done for,' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people,--and
it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy
Fish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cut
for it. Carnehan,' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along with
Billy, Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's me
that did it! Me, the King! '

"'Go! ' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, you
clear out, and we two will meet those folk. '

"'I'm a Chief,' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My men
can go. '

"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan
and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming and
the horns were horning. It was cold--awful cold. I've got that cold in
the back of my head now. There's a lump of it there. "

The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing in
the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the
blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that
his mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteously
mangled hands, and said, "What happened after that? "

The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current.

"What was you pleased to say? " whined Carnehan. "They took them without
any sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the King
knocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peachey
fired his last cartridge into the brown of 'em. Not a single solitary
sound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I tell you
their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend of us
all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a pig; and the
King kicks up the bloody snow and says, 'We've had a dashed fine run for
our money. What's coming next? ' But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tell
you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his head, Sir.
No, he didn't, neither. The King lost his head, so he did, all along o'
one of those cunning rope bridges. Kindly let me have the paper-cutter,
Sir. It tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that snow to a
rope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seen
such. They prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes! ' says the
King. 'D' you suppose I can't die like a gentleman? '

"He turns to Peachey--Peachey that was crying like a child. 'I've
brought you to this, Peachey,' says he. 'Brought you out of your happy
life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief
of the Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey. ' 'I do,' says
Peachey. 'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan. ' 'Shake hands,
Peachey,' says he. 'I'm going now. ' Out he goes, looking neither right
nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing
ropes, 'Cut you beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell,
turning round and round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took
half an hour to fall till he struck the water, and I could see his body
caught on a rock with the gold crown close beside.

"But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine trees? They
crucified him, Sir, as Peachey's hand will show. They used wooden pegs
for his hands and feet; but he didn't die. He hung there and screamed,
and they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he
wasn't dead. They took him down--poor old Peachey that hadn't done them
any harm--that hadn't done them any--"

He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of
his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes.

"They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said
he was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned
him out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in
about a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he
walked before and said, 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we're
doing. ' The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried
to fall on Peachey's head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came
along bent double. He never let go of Dan's hand, and he never let go
of Dan's head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind
him not to come again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey
was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You know Dravot, Sir!
You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now! "

He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out a black
horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on to
my table--the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun,
that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blind
sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with raw
turquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples.

"You be'old now," said Carnehan, "the Emperor in his 'abit as he
lived--the King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor old
Daniel that was a monarch once! "

I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised the
head of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted to
stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. "Let me take away the whisky,
and give me a little money," he gasped. "I was a King once. I'll go to
the Deputy Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get my
health. No, thank you, I can't wait till you get a carriage for me. I've
urgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar. "

He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the
Deputy Commissioner's house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down
the blinding-hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white
dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after
the fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight,
and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang
through his nose, turning his head from right to left:

"The Son of Man goes forth to war,
A golden crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar--
Who follows in His train? "

I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and
drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the
Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did not
in the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary.

Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of the
Asylum.

"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterday
morning," said the Superintendent. "Is it true that he was half an hour
bareheaded in the sun at midday? "

"Yes," said I; "but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him by
any chance when he died? "

"Not to my knowledge," said the Superintendent.

And there the matter rests.

* * * * *




"THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD"

"O' ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon
And you were a Christian slave. "
--W. E. Henley.

His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a
widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City
every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from
aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker
called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bulls-eyes. "
Charley explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the
place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap
amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his
mother.

That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on
me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his
fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young man must,
he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired to
make himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was not
above sending stories of love and death to the drop-a-penny-in-the-slot
journals. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems of
many hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that would surely
shake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, and the
self-revelations and troubles of a young man are almost as holy as those
of a maiden.

Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so on the first
opportunity; he believed in all things good and all things honorable,
but, at the same time, was curiously careful to let me see that he
knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk on twenty-five
shillings a week. He rhymed "dove" with "love" and "moon" with "June,"
and devoutly believed that they had never so been rhymed before. The
long lame gaps in his plays he filled up with hasty words of apology and
description and swept on, seeing all that he intended to do so clearly
that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me for applause.

I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I know
that his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he
told me almost at the outset of our acquaintance; when he was ravaging
my bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truth
as to his chances of "writing something really great, you know. " Maybe
I encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes
flaming with excitement, and said breathlessly:

"Do you mind--can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I
won't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no place for me to write in
at my mother's. "

"What's the trouble? " I said, knowing well what that trouble was.

"I've a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that
was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It's such a notion! "

There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly
thanked me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the pen
scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. The
scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last ceased.
The finest story in the world would not come forth.

"It looks such awful rot now" he said, mournfully. "And yet it seemed so
good when I was thinking about it. What's wrong? "

I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: "Perhaps
you don't feel in the mood for writing. "

"Yes I do--except when I look at this stuff. Ugh! "

"Read me what you've done," I said. He read, and it was wondrous bad
and he paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little
approval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I knew he would be.

"It needs compression," I suggested, cautiously.

"I hate cutting my things down. I don't think you could alter a word
here without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I was
writing it. "

"Charlie, you're suffering from an alarming disease afflicting a
numerous class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in a week. "

"I want to do it at once. What do you think of it? "

"How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell me the story as it lies
in your head. "

Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his ignorance
had so carefully prevented from escaping into the written word. I looked
at him, and wondering whether it were possible, that he did not know the
originality, the power of the notion that had come in his way? It was
distinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed up with pride by
notions not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie babbled
on serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples of
horrible sentences that he purposed to use. I heard him out to the end.
It would be folly to allow his idea to remain in his own inept hands,
when I could do so much with it. Not all that could be done indeed; but,
oh so much!

"What do you think? " he said, at last. "I fancy I shall call it 'The
Story of a Ship. '"

"I think the idea's pretty good; but you won't Be able to handle it for
ever so long. Now I--"

"Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should be
proud," said Charlie, promptly.

There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless,
hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in
her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores,
tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her
speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Still
it was necessary to salve my conscience before I possessed myself of
Charlie's thoughts.

"Let's make a bargain. I'll give you a fiver for the notion," I said.

Charlie became a bank-clerk at once.

"Oh, that's impossible. Between two pals, you know, if I may call you
so, and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn't. Take the notion if
it's any use to you. I've heaps more. "

He had--none knew this better than I--but they were the notions of other
men.

"Look at it as a matter of business--between men of the world," I
returned. "Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books. Business
is business, and you may be sure I shouldn't give that price unless--"

"Oh, if you put it that way," said Charlie, visibly moved by the thought
of the books.