Bibbs was pleased with the
beginnings of his poem, and if he could carry it through he meant to
dare greatly with it--he would venture it upon an editor. For he had
his plan of life now: his day would be of manual labor and thinking
--he could think of his friend and he could think in cadences for
poems, to the crashing of the strong machine--and if his father turned
him out of home and out of the Works, he would work elsewhere and live
elsewhere. His father had the right, and it mattered very little to
Bibbs--he faced the prospect of a working-man's lodging-house without
trepidation. He could find a washstand to write upon, he thought; and
every evening when he left Mary he would write a little; and he would
write on holidays and on Sundays--on Sundays in the afternoon. In a
lodging-house, at least he wouldn't be interrupted by his sister-in-
law's choosing the immediate vicinity of his door for conversations
evidently important to herself, but merely disturbing to him. He
frowned plaintively, wishing he could think of some polite way of
asking her to go away. But, as she went on, he started violently,
dropping manuscript and pencil upon the floor.
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