Indian Tales | Page 2

implored to speak the truth as
to his chances of "writing something really great, you know." Maybe I
encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes
flaming with excitement, and said breathlessly:
"Do you mind--can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I
won't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no place for me to write in at
my mother's."
"What's the trouble?" I said, knowing well what that trouble was.
"I've a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that
was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It's such a notion!"
There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly thanked
me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the pen
scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair.
The scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last
ceased. The finest story in the world would not come forth.
"It looks such awful rot now," he said, mournfully. "And yet it seemed
so good when I was thinking about it. What's wrong?"
I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: "Perhaps
you don't feel in the mood for writing."
"Yes I do--except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!"
"Read me what you've done," I said.
"He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he paused at all the specially
turgid sentences, expecting a little approval; for he was proud of those
sentences, as I knew he would be.
"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. "I fancy I shall call it 'The Story
of a Ship.'"
"I think the idea's pretty good; but you won't be able to handle it for
ever so long. Now I"----
"Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should be
proud," said Charlie, promptly.
There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless,
hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in
her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores,
tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her
speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Still it was
necessary to salve my conscience before I possessed myself of Charlie's
thoughts.
"Let's make a bargain. I'll give you a fiver for the notion," I said.
Charlie became a bank-clerk at once.
"Oh, that's impossible. Between two pals, you know, if I may call you
so, and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn't. Take the notion if
it's any use to you. I've heaps more."

He had--none knew this better than I--but they were the notions of
other men.
"Look at it as a matter of business--between men of the world," I
returned. "Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books.
Business is business, and you may be sure I shouldn't give that price
unless"----
"Oh, if you put it that way," said Charlie, visibly moved by the thought
of the books. 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