He had a turn for literature, and, if an uncommon facility for writing indifferent verses is any proof of it, even for poetry; and he found nobody to admit it, not even Margaret. ‘It is very good, Willie, for a first attempt,’ was the fatal eulogium she once passed upon the most cherished of his poetical productions; and his father, as we have seen, made no scruple of ridiculing his literary efforts. If the boy’s predilection for such matters had interfered with his professional duties, it might have been excusable enough; but the conveyancers to whom William Henry was articled were quite satisfied with him. He was very careful and diligent, and though he had come to years of indiscretion, far from dissipated. If he loitered on his way to his employers’ chambers in the New Inn, it was to turn over the leaves of some old poem on a book-stall, rather than to gaze on the young woman who might be behind it. Still, not being perfection, it was natural that he should feel resentment at his father’s harshness, and at the slights to which his muse was exposed at his unsympathising hands. He had never had any one to sympathise with his poetical aspirations except his friend Reginald Talbot, a fellow-clerk of his own age, who was also devoted to the Muses; and Talbot’s praise had its drawbacks. First, he did not think it worth much; and secondly, it could not be obtained without reciprocity; and it went against William Henry’s conscience to praise Talbot’s poems. ‘Well,’ thought the young man, as he looked out of his attic window, which commanded a distant view of Stratford Church, ‘there lies a man who was as little appreciated at my age as I am; and yet he made some noise in the world. He, too, some say, was a scrivener’s clerk. He, too, was called Will—which is at least an interesting coincidence. He, too, fell in love at my age.’ Here his reflections ended with a sigh, for the parallel extended no further. Shakespeare had not only wooed, but—with a little too much ease, indeed—had won; whereas Margaret Slade was far out of his reach. He had a shrewd suspicion that Mr. Erin intended her to marry Dennis, and had brought him down with him to Stratford ‘to throw the young people together,’ as he would doubtless express it. Young people, indeed! why, Frank Dennis was old enough—well, scarcely, to be her father, unless he had been unusually precocious, but certainly to know better. ‘Crabbed age’—the man was thirty if he was a day—‘and youth cannot live together.’ It was a most monstrous proposition! On the other hand, what could he, poor William Henry, do? If he could persuade Maggie to run away with him to-morrow, they must literally run, for he had hardly money enough, after that Bristol trip, to pay the first pike out of Stratford, and far less a post-chaise.