arked Private in a
corridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as possible,
was "the Greek antiquity man." The policeman knew nothing except the
rules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage through all the
houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly gentleman called away
from his lunch put an end to my search by holding the note-paper between
finger and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully.

"What does this mean? H'mm," said he. "So far as I can ascertain it is
an attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part"--here he glared
at me with intention--"of an extremely illiterate-ah-person." He read
slowly from the paper, "Pollock, Erckman, Tauchnitz, Henniker"--four
names familiar to me.

"Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean--the gist of
the thing?" I asked.

"I have been--many times--overcome with weariness in this particular
employment. That is the meaning." He returned me the paper, and I fled
without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology.

I might have been excused for forgetting much. To me of all men had been
given the chance to write the most marvelous tale in the world, nothing
less than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by himself. Small
wonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. The Fates that are
so careful to shut the doors of each successive life behind us had, in
this case, been neglectful, and Charlie was looking, though that he did
not know, where never man had been permitted to look with full knowledge
since Time began. Above all he was absolutely ignorant of the knowledge
sold to me for five pounds; and he would retain that ignorance, for
bank-clerks do not understand metempsychosis, and a sound commercial
education does not include Greek. He would supply me--here I capered
among the dumb gods of Egypt and laughed in their battered faces--with
material to make my tale sure--so sure that the world would hail it as
an impudent and vamped fiction. And I--I alone would know that it was
absolutely and literally true. I--I alone held this jewel to my hand for
the cutting and polishing. Therefore I danced again among the gods till
a policeman saw me and took steps in my direction.

It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there was no
difficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of poetry. He came
to me time after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph--drunk on
Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now