“No, old boy, that is just where you are wrong,” said Jimmy Dodson with an air of triumph. “He spoke right enough. You see, that chap couldn’t help himself. At first I felt sure he would go clean out of his mind. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘tell me who is the author of this?’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘the authorship is to remain a dead secret.’ ‘_You_ are not the author at any rate,’ he said, ‘a common, vulgar little chap like you.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘and it is no use pretending that I am; but all the same I have promised the author that I would keep his secret; and what is more I am going to keep it.’ ‘I shall see the publishers,’ he said. ‘The world has a right to know who is the author of this.’ ‘By all means see them if you like,’ I said, ‘but you will be none the wiser. They don’t know any more than you do.’ Well, after that the poor old fellow--highly respectable, too--University man, and so on--behaved as though he was fairly up the pole. He swore he would know the author; he swore he wouldn’t let me go out of that room until I had told him your name. You see, that chap was simply mad keen on poetry; he had edited Chaucer and Keats and those chaps for the Oxbridge Press. But no, I stood firm; and when I left him, he said, ‘Well, sir, even if you won’t tell me the name of the author, I may tell you that this priceless manuscript will be placed among those we have of Shakespeare and Milton, for’--and these are his very words, Luney, old boy--‘for,’ said he, ‘this brown-paper parcel is a national possession.’” When Jimmy Dodson had concluded his account of this remarkable scene at the English Museum, and he ventured to look at the blind poet through the tears that rendered his own eyes so dim, he was overcome by horror. The sightless eyes of the poet were closed; his head was thrown back in the chair; his breathing could no longer be heard. The illusion of death was so complete that for an instant Dodson felt that he had entered its presence, and that by his own too-faithful hand he had slain his friend. However, almost immediately the poet uttered a sigh. He then raised his head, and opened his sightless eyes again. “Courage, Achilles!” he could be heard to mutter faintly. An hour of silence passed ere the voice of the poet was heard again. He then addressed his unhappy friend in the manner that became the true prince. “Jimmy,” he said, “the world will never know what it owes to one strong and faithful soul.” Yet again the dying poet held forth his hand, which yet again received the homage of his unhappy friend. LVII A divine patience sustained the poet through those weary days until there came the hour in which the miracle of miracles was consummated, and the printed and bound volumes of his labour, emerging at last from all the vicissitudes of the press were at last laid on his knees.