Rudyard Kipling

Indian Tales Rudyard Kipling

His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and helived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He wastwenty years old and suffered from aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon wherethe marker called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bullseyes." Charlieexplained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and sincelooking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested thatCharlie should go back to his mother. That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on me sometimes in theevenings instead of running about London with his fellow-clerks; and before long, speakingof himself as a young man must, he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. Hedesired to make himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was not abovesending stories of love and death to the drop-a-penny-in-the-slot journals. It was my fate tosit still while Charlie read me poems of many hundred lines, and bulky fragments of playsthat would surely shake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, and the selfrevelations and troubles of a young man are almost as holy as those of a maiden. Charliehad never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so on the first opportunity; he believed in allthings good and all things honorable, but, at the same time, was curiously careful to let mesee that he knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk on twenty-five shillings aweek. He rhymed "dove" with "love" and "moon" with "June," and devoutly believed thatthey had never so been rhymed before. The long lame gaps in his plays he filled up withhasty words of apology and description and swept on, seeing all that he intended to do soclearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me for applause.