"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.
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