"No, not a bit. I have just written a reply to a letter I had this morning from the Earl of Sark. He is an old chum of mine, and has read my book. He wants me to go and stay with him for awhile. But I can't--not just now, anyway."
"Well, you see," said Wilkinson, "Freemantle here is very anxious to do something in the way of verse--publishing it, I mean. He has several poems ready for publication. Poetry isn't in my way, Cheyne, so I thought I'd bring him to you."
"May I ask if you expect it to pay?"
"Well, no," said Freemantle, with a candid smile.
"You are independent of it?"
"In a certain sense I am. I am an attorney, and am employed in the office of Baker and Tranter, Bedford Street."
"Oh, that is all right. Is your purpose to publish a volume?"
"No, I do not aim so high as that."
"I am glad to hear it. There aren't more than six men whose volumes pay the mere expenses of printing and publication. Poetry is the most beggarly of all arts now. Living poets of fame and exquisite merit do not make as much by their trade as the humblest Italian artisan employed in casting plaster-of-Paris in Leather Lane. Writing and publishing poetry is an expensive luxury, and the readers of poetry are now a lost tribe."
"I thought of a much more modest attempt than a book. I thought I might be able to get a few little bits of verse into a magazine or two. I have brought a few little bits with me; I should feel very much obliged to you if you will look at them, and tell me what you think of them, and if there is any chance of their getting in anywhere; and if there is, when?"