"I began to compose when I was six years old. I wrote a poem on the sea, commencing,—
'O thou earthly sea,
Every person thinks of thee,—
The sailor, and the busy bee,
And the Chinese drinking tea!'
I thought it very fine. I have written many things since then, and they seemed good to me at the time. I would not venture to say how they struck others."
He smiled pleasantly.
"Do not be frightened by the shadow of a possible wife from unfolding your history," said I. "Chance has thrown us together; befriend me with your experience."
"Take warning, then, if need be.
"In college I was thought 'a very able fellow,' one 'who held the pen of a ready writer'; and I graduated as vain of my supposed talents as a young miss of her first conquest.