“Y-yes,” he said feebly, “I will take them to the office to-morrow--and--and, old boy, I will tell them to set it up at once. I--I will tell them that the author is impatient--that he has not much time--that--that his time is nearly up--and--and that he wants to know that others know what he has done for them before he goes.” With a sinking heart the unhappy Dodson made the great pile of manuscript into a parcel with the aid of brown paper and string, in precisely the fashion that in former days he had instructed his _protégé_. As suddenly he recalled his demeanour towards one who had now acquired a transcendent sanctity, his own eyes grew blind with their tears. Yet over and above his intolerable emotion, that which dominated his thoughts, was the knowledge that the mission to which he was pledged was foredoomed to fail. “I don’t know much about literature--don’t pretend to,” said the unhappy young man, as he slipped the string round the parcel in a kind of dull anguish, “but it wouldn’t surprise me at all, old boy, if this doesn’t turn out to be the longest poem in the English language.” “I believe it is a little less than three times the length of the _Paradise Lost_,” said the poet, with absolute composure, yet touched by that curious irony that his friend had never understood. “And I am reminded that I would have them print it with great clearness in three honest tomes. Each volume should coincide with a phase of the poem; you will observe that there are three phases to our little treatise, which correspond with those of human life--three phases through which the soul of man must pass in its terrestrial journeyings. On the first page, only the name of the poem must be set forth; the name of the poet must not appear. And further, good friend, I urge you to observe the profoundest secrecy as to the authorship of this treatise upon human life. The identity of the author must never be disclosed.” “Why must the identity of the author never be disclosed, old boy?” asked Jimmy Dodson, whose bewilderment and consternation were ever increasing. “I am fearful,” said the dying poet, with that curious smile that was at once proud, gaunt, and melancholy. “I am fearful lest my countrymen should incur the mockery of future ages by seeking to re-embody the life of the first among their authors.” L Days passed ere Jimmy Dodson returned again to the little room. They were fraught with dire anxiety for the blind poet and the aged man, his father. In his heart the old man was filled with despair, and he knew not how to obtain the strength wholly to conceal his fears. What if he to whom they had entrusted their priceless treasure should never return to them again! He had neither the devotion nor the blind faith of the dying man. “They are printing it, they are printing it!” the poet would exclaim many times in the day as he kept the chair beside the hearth.