“Are you quite sure that I wrote that?” Asked the poet. “Look carefully. Is it really my book?”
“It is, indeed. Printed when you were twenty.”
“I am so happy,” said the poet—“so happy to think I wrote that. Time itself cannot rob me of that.”
Very soon it was plainly to be seen that the poet was on the very border-line of life and death.
“Is there no one you would care to see?” asked the lawyer, gently.
“No, no one,” answered the poet.
“Not your physician?” asked the lawyer.
“O no, indeed,” answered the poet, with a flash of his odd smile. “Give him my love. But tell him that I want to die—not to be killed.”
“What time is it?” he asked, presently.
“Five minutes to four.”