Evening star., 1914-04-12

D1lOflStflgS. not q Very detailed d1Idlr.
Manuscripts. He riff1ed the pages rue
fully, sonnets and chant-royales and epics,
fine and lofty in spirit; 50 fine indeed that
they easily sifted through every editorial
office in London. There was even a bulky
romance He had read SO much about the
enormous ROYALTIES that American authors
received for their work, and English authors
who were popular on the other side, that
his ambition had been frenetically stirred
The fortunes such men as Numbering and
Piffle and Drool made, And all he had ac-
complished so far had been the earnest sup
port of the postal service. Far back at the
beginning he had been unfortunate enough
to sell sonnet for ten shillings. Alack!
You sell your first sonnet, you win your first
hand at cards, and then the passion has YOU.
Poetry was drug on the market. No
body read it (or wrote it, these days; and
anyone who attempted to sell it was clearly
mad Oh, a jingle for "Punch' might
pass, you know; something clever, with
snapper to it. But epic poetryo Sonnets?
Why, didn't you know there wasn't maga-
zine going that did not have some subeditor
who could whack out fourteen lines in four
teen minutes, whenever page needed filling
up? These things he had been told times
and Drool had long since cornered the ro-
nance market. The Kings Highway had
become No Thoroughfare.
America! He would go to the land of the
brave (when occasion demanded) and the
free (if you were imaginative). Having
packed his trunk and valise, he departed for
Liverpool. Besides, America was all that
was left: he was at the end of his rope.
What rolicking old fraud life was!
Swung out of his peaceful orbit by the leger-
denain of Death; no longer humble,
chr cto h,+4
darkly against the planets; and then this
monumental folly which had returned him
to the old orbit, but still in meteoric form,
without peace or means of livelihood! An
ass, if ever there was one!
He eventually arrived at his destination,
lied blithely to the chief steward, and was
assigned to the first-class cabins on the
promenade deck, simply because his man.
ner was engaging and his face pleasing to
the eye. The sea? He had never been
upon it but once, and then only in a row.
boat. A good sailor? Perhaps Chicken
and barley broths at eleven; the Captains
table in the dining saloon, breakfast, lunch
con, and dinner; cabin housekeeper and
luggage man at the ports; and always
natty, stiff1y starched jacket with a metal
number; and ayes, Sir!' and "No, Sir!' and
@Thank you, Sir!' his official vocabulary
fine job for poet!
1t was all in the game he was going to
play with Fate. A chap who could sell
farningo ties to gentlemen with purple
noses and shirts with reversible cuffs to coal
porters ought not to worry over such SIM
pie employment as cabin steward on board
an ocean liner.
FAIRLY the next morning they left port,
with only few frst-class passengers.
The heavy travel was coming from the west,
not going that way. The series of cabins
under his stewardship were vacant. There
fore, with the thoroughness of his breed, he
set about to learn ship and by the time
the first bugle for dinner blew he knew port
from starboard, boat deck from main, and
many other things unknown to the chief
steward, who had made a hundred and
twenty voyages on this very ship.
Beautiful weather; a mild southwest
blow, with a moderate beam-sea: only, the
deck would come up smack against the soles
of his boots in a most unexpected and ag-
gravating manner. But after the third day
out he found his sea legs and learned how to
"lean' From two till FIVE his time was his
own, and a good deal of this time he devoted
to Henley and Morris and Walt Whitman,
an ancient briar. between his teeth and
canister Of excellent tobacco at his elbow.
Odd, isn't it, that an Englishman. without
his pipe is as incomplete as a ManX cat2