No More Learning

"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. The bargain was clinched with an agreement that he should
at unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that he possessed,
should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned right to
inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. Then I said, "Now
tell me how you came by this idea. "

"It came by itself. " Charlie's eyes opened a little.

"Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero that you must have
read before somewhere. "

"I haven't any time for reading, except when you let me sit here, and
on Sundays I'm on my bicycle or down the river all day. There's nothing
wrong about the hero, is there? "

"Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your hero
went pirating.