"
"You've a most provident imagination. Where have you been reading about
galleys and galley-slaves?"
"Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when I get the chance. But, perhaps,
if you say so, I may have read something."
He went away shortly afterward to deal with booksellers, and I wondered how a
bank clerk aged twenty could put into my hands with a profligate abundance of
detail, all given with absolute assurance, the story of extravagant and
bloodthirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and death in unnamed seas. He had led
his hero a desperate dance through revolt against the overseas, to command of
a ship of his own, and ultimate establishment of a kingdom on an island
"somewhere in the sea, you know"; and, delighted with my paltry five pounds,
had gone out to buy the notions of other men, that these might teach him how
to write. I had the consolation of knowing that this notion was mine by right
of purchase, and I thought that I could make something of it.
When next he came to me he was drunk--royally drunk on many poets for the
first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over
each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations. Most of all was he drunk
with Longfellow.
"Isn't it splendid? Isn't it superb?" he cried, after hasty greetings.
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