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. How did he live?"
"He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling you about."
"What sort of ship?"
"It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through the oar-holes and
the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Then there's a bench running
down between the two lines of oars and an overseer with a whip walks up and
down the bench to make the men work."
"How do you know that?"
"It's in the table. There's a rope running overhead, looped to the upper deck,
for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls.
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