Then, with a dry smile, "If you
call occupying a hall bedroom and eating at a third-rate boarding-house
table living. However, it's my own fault. I've been a newspaper man
since I left college. But I threw up my job six months ago. Since then
I've been free-lancing."
"Have, hey?" The captain was too polite to ask further questions, but he
had not the slightest idea what "free-lancing" might be. Pearson divined
his perplexity and explained.
"I've had a feeling," he said, "that I might write magazine articles and
stories--yes, possibly a novel or two. It's a serious disease, but
the only way to find out whether it's chronic or not is to experiment.
That's what I'm doing now. The thing I'm at work on may turn out to be
a sea story. So I spend some time around the wharves and aboard the few
sailing ships in port, picking up material."
Captain Elisha patted him on the back.
"Now don't you get discouraged," he said. "I used to have an idea that
novel writin' and picture paintin' was poverty jobs for men with healthy
appetites, but I've changed my mind. I don't know's you'll believe it,
but I've just found out, for a fact, that some painters get twenty-two
thousand dollars for one picture. For ONE, mind you. And a little mite
of a thing, too, that couldn't have cost scarcely anything to paint.
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