Julian began coughing violently, and all at
once became so weak that he had to lean against a palisading.
Waymark, looking closer in alarm, saw that the handkerchief which
the poor fellow was holding to his mouth was covered with blood.
"We must have a cab," he exclaimed. "It is impossible for you to
walk in this state."
Julian resisted, with assurances that the worst was over for the
time. If Waymark would give the support of his arm, he would get on
quite well. There was no overcoming his resolution to proceed.
"There's no misunderstanding this, old fellow," he said, with a
laugh, when they had walked a few paces.
Waymark made no reply.
"You'll laugh at me," Julian went on, "but isn't there a certain
resemblance between my case and that of Keats? He too was a
drug-pounder; he liked it as little as I do; and he died young of
consumption. I suppose a dying man may speak the truth about
himself. I too might have been a poet, if life had dealt more kindly
with me. I think you would have liked the thing I was writing; I'd
finished some three hundred lines; but now you'll never see it.
Well, I don't know that it matters."
Waymark tried to speak in a tone of hopefulness, but it was hard to
give his words the semblance of sincerity.
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