"Writin' ads," says I, "or solicitin' magazine subscriptions?"
"I am getting out a book of poems," says Rupert, dignified.
"Wh-a-a-at?" I gasps. "Not--not reg'lar limerick stuff?"
I can see now that was a bad break. But Rupert was patient with me. He explains that these are all poems about sailors and ships and so on; real salt, tarry stuff. Also, he points out how it's built the new style way, with no foolish rhymes at the end, and with long lines or short, just as they happen to come. To make it clear, he digs up a roll of galley proofs he's just collected from the publishers. And say, he had the goods. There it was, yards of it, all printed neat in big fat type. "Sea Songs" is what he calls 'em, and each one has a separate tag of its own, such as "Kittywakes," "Close Hauled," and "Scuppers Under."
"Looks like the real stuff," says I. "Let's hear how it listens. Ah, come on! Some of that last one, about scuppers, now."
With a little more urgin', Rupert reads it to me. I should call him a good reader, too. Anyway, he can untie one of them deep, boomin' voices, and with that long, serious face of his helpin' out the general effect--well, it's kind of impressive. He spiels off two or three stickfuls and then stops.
"Which way was you readin' that, backwards or forwards?" says I.
Rupert begins to stiffen up, and I hurries on with the apology. "My mistake," says I. "I thought maybe you might have got mixed at the start. No offense. But say, Cap'n, what's the big idea? What does it all mean?"
In some ways Rupert is good-natured. He was then. He explains how in this brand of verse you don't try to tell a story or anything like that. "I am merely giving my impressions," says he. "That is all. Interpreting my own feelings, as it were."
"Oh!" says I. "Then there's no goin' behind the returns. Who's to say you don't feel that way? I get you now. But that ain't the kind of stuff you can wish onto the magazines, is it?"
Which shows just how far behind the bass-drum I am. Rupert tells me the different places where he's unloaded his pieces, most of 'em for real money. Also, I pumps out of him how he came to get into the game. Seems he'd been roomin' down in old Greenwich Village; just happened to drift in among them long-haired men and short-haired girls. It turns out that the book was a little enterprise that was being backed by Mrs. Mumford. Yes, it's that kind of a book--so much down in advance to the Grafter Press. You know, Mrs. Mumford always did fall for Rupert, and after she's read one of his sea spasms in a magazine she don't lose any time huntin' him out and renewin' their cruise acquaintance. A real poet! Say, I can just see her playin' that up among her friends. And when she finds he's mixin' in with all those dear, delightful Bohemians, she insists that Rupert tow her along too.