Chapter 7

A new boarder had joined the circle about Mrs. Pedagog's breakfast-table.
He had what the Idiot called a three-ply name--which was Richard
Henderson Warren--and he was by profession a poet. Whether it was this
that made it necessary for him to board or not, the rewards of the muse
being rather slender, was known only to himself, and he showed no
disposition to enlighten his fellow-boarders on the subject. His success
as a poet Mrs. Pedagog found it hard to gauge; for while the postman left
almost daily numerous letters, the envelopes of which showed that they
came from the various periodicals of the day, it was never exactly clear
whether or not the missives contained remittances or rejected
manuscripts, though the fact that Mr. Warren was the only boarder in the
house who had requested to have a waste-basket added to the furniture of
his room seemed to indicate that they contained the latter. To this
request Mrs. Pedagog had gladly acceded, because she had a notion that
therein at some time or another would be found a clew to the new
boarder's past history--or possibly some evidence of such duplicity
as the good lady suspected he might be guilty of. She had read that Byron
was profligate, and that Poe was addicted to drink, and she was impressed
with the idea that poets generally were bad men, and she regarded the
waste-basket as a possible means of protecting herself against any such
idiosyncrasies of her new-found genius as would operate to her
disadvantage if not looked after in time.

This waste-basket she made it her daily duty to empty, and in the privacy
of her own room. Half-finished "ballads, songs, and snatches" she perused
before consigning them to the flames or to the large jute bag in the
cellar, for which the ragman called two or three times a year. Once Mrs.
Pedagog's heart almost stopped beating when she found at the bottom of
the basket a printed slip beginning, "_The Editor regrets that the
enclosed lines are unavailable_," and closing with about thirteen
reasons, any one or all of which might have been the main cause of the
poet's disappointment. Had it not been for the kindly clause in the
printed slip that insinuated in graceful terms that this rejection did
not imply a lack of literary merit in the contribution itself, the good
lady, knowing well that there was even less money to be made from
rejected than from accepted poetry, would have been inclined to request
the poet to vacate the premises. The very next day, however, she was glad
she had not requested the resignation of the poet from the laureateship
of her house; for the same basket gave forth another printed slip from
another editor, begging the poet to accept the enclosed check, with
thanks for his