bing influence of his personality I would relapse
into indifference....

Returning one evening to our quarters, which were now in the "Yard," I
found Tom seated with a blank sheet before him, thrusting his hand
through his hair and biting the end of his penholder to a pulp. In his
muttering, which was mixed with the curious, stingless profanity of which
he was master, I caught the name of Cheyne, and I knew that he was facing
the crisis of a fortnightly theme. The subject assigned was a narrative
of some personal experience, and it was to be handed in on the morrow. My
own theme was already, written.

"I've been holding down this chair for an hour, and I can't seem to think
of a thing." He rose to fling himself down on the lounge. "I wish I was
in Canada."

"Why Canada?"

"Trout fishing with Uncle Jake at that club of his where he took me last
summer." Tom gazed dreamily at the ceiling. "Whenever I have some darned
foolish theme like this to write I want to go fishing, and I want to go
like the devil. I'll get Uncle Jake to take you, too, next summer."

"I wish you would."

"Say, that's living all right, Hughie, up there among the tamaracks and
balsams!" And he began, for something like the thirtieth time, to relate
the adventures of the trip.

As he talked, the idea presented itself to me with sudden fascination to
use this incident as the subject of Tom's theme; to write it for him,
from his point of view, imitating the droll style he would have had if he
had been able to write; for, when he was interested in any matter, his
oral narrative did not lack vividness. I began to ask him questions: what
were the trees like, for instance? How did the French-Canadian guides
talk? He had the gift of mimicry: aided by a partial knowledge of French
I wrote down a few sentences as they sounded. The canoe had upset and he
had come near drowning. I made him describe his sensations.

"I'll write your theme for you," I exclaimed, when he had finished.

"Gee, not about that!"

"Why not? It's a personal experience."

His gratitude was pathetic.... By this time I was so full of the subject
that it fairly clamoured for expression, and as I wrote the hours flew.
Once in a while I paused to ask him a question as he sat with his chair
tilted back and his feet on the table, reading a detective story. I
sketched in the scene with bold strokes; the desolate bois brule on the
mountain side, the polished crystal surface of the pool