"I gather, Sir," remarked my fellow-traveller, after I had put away the
writing-block on which I had been jotting down the outline of an
article, "that you are a literary man, like myself?"
We were the only occupants of a compartment in a L. & N. W. R. carriage.
I had been too absorbed till then to notice his appearance, but I now
observed that he had rather unkempt hair, luminous eyes, and a soft hat.
"Oh, well," I admitted, "I write."
"But I take it that, whatever you write, it is not _poetry_," he said.
What led him to this inference I cannot say, but I had to confess that
it was correct.
"Still, even though you are not a Poet yourself, I hope," he said, "you
can feel some sympathy for one who has been so infamously treated as I
have."