Unappreciated Genius

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The poet is inspired. Stanza after stanza flows from his prolific pen. Reams of paper are consumed, covering the floor in a veritable white-capped sea of manuscript. The poem is nearly finished. Alas! an interruption. The world loses a masterpiece. Miss Gush, of the "Gaiety," has a new act. For a "try out" she selects the poet as her victim. Her interruption and voluble discussion of her probable "hit" causes him much annoyance. The further acrobatic delineation of her histrionic art forces him to "cover up" for self protection. Finally, after much tactful endeavor, he succeeds in forcing his strenuous visitor outside the door. Returning the poet finds his poem gradually disappearing through the transom. A paper-hanger next door, short of material, is using it to finish out a border. Grasping a pistol, the frenzied poet forces an entrance and finds his poem decorating the wall. The workman flees in alarm. The poet hastens to recover his own; his efforts are of little avail. As bit by bit is torn from the wall it sticks to his person. Despondent he sinks into a chair. During his absence the chore boy uses part of the poem to kindle the fire in the poet's room. The landlady, noticing the thinness of the poor poet's bed tick, with ready sympathy fills the tick with the balance of the poem. Recovering from his stupor the poet returns and finds the masterpiece missing. To him the charred bits on the grate tell the unhappy story. He succumbs to despair, the pistol suggests suicide, prepared for the end he sits on the poem-filled tick. The unusual softness temporarily diverts his mind. The strain has been too much. Nature claims her own. Sinking into its depths, the poet sleeps.