The Fates that are so careful to shut the
doors of each successive life behind us had, in this case, been neglectful,
and Charlie was looking, though that he did not know, where never man had been
permitted to look with full knowledge since Time began. Above all he was
absolutely ignorant of the knowledge sold to me for five pounds; and he would
retain that ignorance, for bank-clerks do not understand metempsychosis, and a
sound commercial education does not include Greek. He would supply me--here I
capered among the dumb gods of Egypt and laughed in their battered faces--with
material to make my tale sure--so sure that the world would hail it as an
impudent and vamped fiction. And I--I alone would know that it was absolutely
and literally true. I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting and
polishing.
Therefore I danced again among the gods till a policeman saw me and took steps
in my direction.
It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there was no
difficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of poetry. He came to me
time after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph--drunk on Byron,
Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the boy had been in his past lives, and
desperately anxious not to lose one word of his babble, I could not hide from
him my respect and interest.
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