Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote and rewrote “gold—cold—mould” many times. Again he sought inspiration from the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had overheard: And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast. As I remembered the original it is “fair”—a trite word—instead of “young,” and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that the attempt to reproduce “its little smoke in pallid moonlight died” was a failure. Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose—the naked soul’s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved—unclean as we count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw material, so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence Keats wove the twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem. Shame I had none in overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone with the smoke of the pastille. “That’s it,” I murmured. “That’s how it’s blocked out. Go on! Ink it in, man. Ink it in!” Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein “loveliness” was made to rhyme with a desire to look upon “her empty dress.” He picked up a fold of the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with infinite tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I could not decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped the stuff. Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I do now) in what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket coloured his dreams. In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered the shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the blanket, rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names on the labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie’s _New Commercial Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened and laid them side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone from his face, read first in one and then in the other, and paused with pen behind his ear. “What wonder of Heaven’s coming now?” I thought. “Manna—manna—manna,” he said at last, under wrinkled brows. “That’s what I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that’s good!” His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:— Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd, And jellies smoother than the creamy curd, And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon, Manna and dates in Argosy transferred From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon. He repeated it once more, using “blander” for “smoother” in the second line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes missed no stroke of any word) he substituted “soother” for his atrocious second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is written in the book—as it is written in the book. A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind followed a spurt and rattle of rain.