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 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?"