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"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.
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