I have read most of your writings, and I
have thought over some of them many a time, and I have even had
ideas for stories, which, in my own conceit, I have imagined were
good enough for you, and I have wished that I possessed your
facility with the pen that I might make of them myself what I
thought you would make of them had they been ideas of your own."
The old gentleman's pallid face reddened as he said this, and while
I was hopeless as to anything of value resulting from his ideas, I
could not resist the temptation to hear what he had to say further,
his manner was so deliciously simple, and his desire to aid me so
manifest. He rattled on with suggestions for a half-hour. Some of
them were good, but none were new. Some were irresistibly funny, and
did me good because they made me laugh, and I hadn't laughed
naturally for a period so long that it made me shudder to think of
it, fearing lest I should forget how to be mirthful. Finally I grew
tired of his persistence, and, with a very ill-concealed impatience,
told him plainly that I could do nothing with his suggestions,
thanking him, however, for the spirit of kindliness which had
prompted him to offer them.
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