"As what? I don't know whether it was long ago or not. It's only a notion, but sometimes it seems just as real as if it was true. Do I bother you with talking about it?" "Not in the least. Did you make up anything else?" "Yes, but it's nonsense." Charlie flushed a little. "Never mind; let's hear about it." "Well, I was thinking over the story, and after awhile I got out of bed and wrote down on a piece of paper the sort of stuff the men might be supposed to scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. It seemed to make the thing more lifelike. It _is_ so real to me, y'know." "Have you the paper on you?" "Ye-es, but what's the use of showing it? It's only a lot of scratches. All the same, we might have 'em reproduced in the book on the front page." "I'll attend to those details. Show me what your men wrote." He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of note-paper, with a single line of scratches upon it, and I put this carefully away. "What is it supposed to mean in English?" I said. "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it means 'I'm beastly tired.' It's great nonsense," he repeated, "but all those men in the ship seem as real as people to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should like to see it written and printed." "But all you've told me would make a long book." "Make it then. You've only to sit down and write it out." "Give me a little time. Have you any more notions?" "Not just now. I'm reading all the books I've bought. They're splendid." When he had left I looked at the sheet of note-paper with the inscription upon it. Then I took my head tenderly between both hands, to make certain that it was not coming off or turning round. Then ... but there seemed to be no interval between quitting my rooms and finding myself arguing with a policeman outside a door marked _Private_ in a corridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as possible, was "the Greek antiquity man." The policeman knew nothing except the rules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage through all the houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly gentleman called away from his lunch put an end to my search by holding the note-paper between finger and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully. "What does this mean? H'mm," said he. "So far as I can ascertain it is an attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part"--here he glared at me with intention--"of an extremely illiterate--ah--person." He read slowly from the paper, "_Pollock, Erckmann, Tauchnitz, Henniker_"--four names familiar to me. "Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean--the gist of the thing?" I asked. "I have been--many times--overcome with weariness in this particular employment. That is the meaning." He returned me the paper, and I fled without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology.