Sometimes he would give the coppers wrapped up in old ballads telling of murders and hangings, shipwrecks, battles, national events, some in print, some in writing, all dirty. In this way René became possessed of an ode to the Albert Memorial: Proud monument, thou Christmas cake in stone! The thing thou meanest never yet has grown In English soil, a virtue not content To be its own reward, a virtue bent On cheating life of man and man of life. We English have rejoicèd in the strife Of being, till that virtue chilled our blood And had us hypnotized and nipped in bud Our aspiration. We of Shakespeare's line Had in our living made our life divine Till, as we grew accustomed to look at you, We worshiped man transformed into a statue. This poem was written on the inside of a grocer's bag, and when it was handed to René it contained threepence. It was signed Jethro Lunt, and dated April 4, 1887. One day Old Lunt extended his usual observations, and ended by asking morosely: "Did you--did you read my poems?" "Why, yes," answered René, "all of them." "Have you really now? No one has read my poems for thirty years. It's only the old ballads I sell now, and them not often. The newspapers do all the murders and hangings. Till the halfpenny newspapers came in, I could sell a murder or two in certain streets. I had one about Charley Peace: Charles Peace, he played the violin. Music excited him to sin Like drink with other men. Maybe you never heard that?" "No. I never heard that." "No. I thought you wouldn't have. You'd hardly be born then. Hard it is to remember that there are some so young they might almost have been born into another world." He fumbled about in the tails of his coat, humming and crooning to himself, and presently he produced a litter of papers and held them out diffidently, and so shyly that he turned his head away as René put out his hand for them. "There's forty years' work there," he said. "Forty years. I was thirty-five when I began it, thirty-five, and hopeful, and I finished it five years ago. I wanted to know if you think there's any chance of its being published in a book. I'd like to leave a book behind me. I've been forgotten. I'd like someone to be reminded of me. I've been mortally afraid of the young ones till you. There's something lucky about your face, something that shines in it. There was many faces like yours in my young days, but there was no golden statue in the Gardens then, and this must have been meadows down to the river side." He pressed his lips together and mumbled. René asked him if he could do with a shilling, but he refused, seemed so hurt that he shriveled and went away.