"Sure! Did you never read my 'Rhymes of a Rustler'? One reviewer would say I was the clear dope, the genuine eighteen-carat, jewelled-movement article; the next would aver I was the rankest dub that ever came down the pike. They said I'd imitated people, people I'd never read, people I'd never heard of, people I never dreamt existed. I was accused of imitating over twenty different writers. Then the pedants got after me, said I didn't conform to academic formulas, advised me to steep myself in tradition. They talked about form, about classic style and so on. As if it matters so long as you get down the thing itself so that folks can see it, and feel it go right home to their hearts. I can write in all the artificial verse forms, but they're mouldy with age, back numbers. Forget them. Quit studying that old Greek dope: study life, modern life, palpitating with colour, crying for expression. Life! Life! The sunshine of it was in my heart, and I just naturally tried to be its singer."
"I say," said the Prodigal from the bunk where he was lounging, in a haze of cigarette smoke, "read us that thing you did the other day, 'The Last Supper.'"
The Pote's eyes twinkled with pleasure.
"All right," he said. Then, in a clear voice, he repeated the following lines:
Just as he finished there came a knock at the door, and a young man entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him to me.
"The Yukon Yorick."
"Hello," chuckled the newcomer, "how's the bunch? Don't let me stampede you. How d'ye do, Horace! Glad to meet you." (He called everybody Horace.) "Just come away from a meeting of my creditors. What's that? Have a slab of booze? Hardly that, old fellow, hardly that. Don't tempt me, Horace, don't tempt me. Remember I'm only a poor working-girl."
He seemed brimming over with jovial acceptance of life in all its phases. He lit a cigar.
"Say, boys, you know old Dingbats the lawyer. Ha, yes. Well, met him on Front Street just now. Says I: 'Horace, that was a pretty nifty spiel you gave us last night at the Zero Club.' He looked at me all tickled up the spine. Ha, yes. He was pleased as Punch. 'Say, Horace,' I says, 'I'm on, but I won't give you away. I've got a book in my room with every word of that speech in it.' He looked flabbergasted. So I have—ha, yes, the dictionary."