One afternoon as I was passing his house he beckoned me in.
"You're making good, and I'm glad of it ... because they're looking on
you as my protege ... holding me responsible for you. Munday, in the
Schiller class, tells me you sometimes bring in your daily lesson in
_Wilhelm Tell_, translated into blank verse ... and good stuff, too....
And King says he turns over the most difficult lines in Horace in class
for you to translate and construe."
Langworth had only half the truth from King.
Whenever the latter came upon a passage a little off colour, he put me
on it, chuckling to himself ... he knew I would go right through with it
without hesitation.
* * * * *
About this time I received a letter from William Hayes Ward, editor of
the New York _Independent_. He informed me that he had taken a poem of
mine. And, as indubitable proof, he enclosed a check for five dollars.
Professor Langworth was himself a poet of no mean ability: he was
pleased to hear that I had sold a poem to the _Independent_.
* * * * *
I was sick of being shunned because I carried stable smells about with
me wherever I went.
Also, sanguinely, with the sale of my first poem, I was sure that my
literary career had begun, and that from now on I would be enabled to
earn my living by my pen, and pay my way as a student, too.
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