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.
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