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 overseers, 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. "Listen to this-- "'Wouldst thou,'--so the helmsman answered, 'Know the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery.'" By gum! "'Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery,'" he repeated twenty times, walking up and down the room and forgetting me. "But _I_ can understand it too," he said to himself. "I don't know how to thank you for that fiver, And this; listen-- "'I remember the black wharves and the ships And the sea-tides tossing free, And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea.'" I haven't braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all about it." "You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have you ever seen it?" "When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we used to live in Coventry, though, before we came to London. I never saw it, "'When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the Equinox.'" He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand the passion that was shaking himself. "When that storm comes," he continued, "I think that all the oars in the ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have their chests smashed in by the bucking oar-heads. By the way, have you done anything with that notion of mine yet?" "No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the world you're so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know nothing of ships." "I don't know. It's as real as anything to me until I try to write it down. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you had loaned me 'Treasure Island'; and I made up a whole lot of new things to go into the story." "What sort of things?" "About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black beans and wine in a skin bag, passed from bench to bench." "Was the ship built so long ago as _that_?"