"I've never read any poetry in my life," said Edward Henry, like a desperate criminal. "Not a line."
Whereupon Carlo Trent rose up from his seat, and his eyeglasses dangled in front of him.
"Mr. Machin," said he with the utmost benevolence. "This is the most [103] interesting thing I've ever come across. Do you know, you're precisely the man I've always been wanting to meet?... The virgin mind. The clean slate.... Do you know, you're precisely the man that it's my ambition to write for?"
"It's very kind of you," said Edward Henry, feebly; beaten, and consciously beaten.
(He thought miserably:
"What would Nellie think if she saw me in this gang?")
Carlo Trent went on, turning to Rose Euclid:
"Rose, will you recite those lines of Nashe?"
Rose Euclid began to blush.
"That bit you taught me the day before yesterday?"