"Lovers, chiefly," said the Idiot. "Never having been a poet yourself, sir, you have no notion how far the mere faculty of being able to dash off a sonnet to a lady's eyebrow helps a man along in ultimately becoming the possessor of that eyebrow, together with the rest of the lady. I have seen women won, sir, by a rondeau. In fact, I have myself completely routed countless unpoetic rivals by exploding in their ranks burning quatrains to the fair objects of our affections. With woman the man who can write a hymn of thanksgiving that he is permitted to gaze into her cerulean orbs has a great advantage over the wight who has to tell her she has dandy blue eyes in commonplace prose. The commonplace-prose wight knows it, too, and he'd pay ten per cent. of his salary during courtship if he could devise a plan by means of which he could pass himself off as a poet. To meet this demand, our loan department would be established. An unimaginative lover could come in and describe the woman he adored; the loan clerk would fish out a sonnet to fit the girl, and the lover could borrow it for ten days, just as brokers borrow stock. Armed with this he could go up to Harlem, or wherever else the maiden lived, and carry consternation into the hearts of his rivals by spouting the sonnet as nonchalantly as though he had just thought of it. So it would go on. For the following call he could borrow a ballad singing the glories of her raven locks, likening them to the beautiful night, or, if the locks were red instead of black, to the aurora borealis."
"You'd have trouble finding a rhyme to borealis," said the Poet.
"Tutt!" said the Idiot. "What's the matter with 'Glory, Alice,' 'Listen to my story, Alice,' 'I'm going to war so gory, Alice,' 'I fear you are a Tory, Alice' (this for a Revolutionary poem), or 'Come rowing in my dory, Alice'? There's no end to 'em."
"If you'll write a rhyming dictionary I'll buy a copy," was the Poet's sole comment.
"That will come later," said the Idiot. "Once get our clearing-house established, we can branch out into a general Poetry Trust and Supply Company that will make millions. We'll make so much money, by Jove!" he added, slapping the table enthusiastically, "that we can afford to go into the publishing business ourselves and bring out volumes of verse for anybody and everybody. We can deal in Fame! A man that couldn't write his own name so that anybody could read it could come to us and say: 'Gentlemen, I've got everything but brains. I want to be an author and 'mongst the authors stand. I am told it is delightful to see one's book in print. I haven't a book, but I've got a dollar or two, and if you'll put out a first-class book of poems under my name I'll pay all expenses and give you a royalty of twenty per cent. on every copy I give away!' No money in it? Bah! You gentlemen don't know. If you say fortune would not wait upon this venture I say you are the kind of men who would sell government bonds for their value as mere engravings if you had the chance."
"You certainly do draw a roseate picture," said Mr. Whitechoker.
"I do indeed," said the Idiot, "and the paint is laid on thick."
"Well, I hope it goes," said the Poet. "I'll make a deposit the first day of three hundred and sixty-seven ballads, four hundred and twenty-three couplets, eighty-nine rondeaus, and one epic about ten yards in length, all of which I have in my desk at this moment."
"Very well," said the Idiot, rising, "With that encouragement from you I feel warranted in ordering the 'Not Good' stamp at least."