Burnamy laughed. “I don't believe they envy me. It won't be all roses for me—they know that. But they know that I can take care of myself if it isn't.” He remembered something one of his friends in the office had said of the painful surprise the Bird of Prey would feel if he ever tried his beak on him in the belief that he was soft.
She abruptly left the mere personal question. “And which would you rather write: poems or those kind of sketches?”
“I don't know,” said Burnamy, willing to talk of himself on any terms. “I suppose that prose is the thing for our time, rather more; but there are things you can't say in prose. I used to write a great deal of verse in college; but I didn't have much luck with editors till Mr. March took this little piece for 'Every Other Week'.”
“Little? I thought it was a long poem!”
Burnamy laughed at the notion. “It's only eight lines.”
“Oh!” said the girl. “What is it about?”
He yielded to the temptation with a weakness which he found incredible in a person of his make. “I can repeat it if you won't give me away to Mrs. March.”
“Oh, no indeed! He said the lines over to her very simply and well. They are beautiful—beautiful!”
“Do you think so?” he gasped, in his joy at her praise.
“Yes, lovely. Do you know, you are the first literary man—the only literary man—I ever talked with. They must go out—somewhere! Papa must meet them at his clubs. But I never do; and so I'm making the most of you.”