He turned to the right towards Capel Street.  Ignatius Gallaher on the London Press!  Who would have thought it possible eight years before?  Still, now that he reviewed the past, Little Chandler could remember many signs of future greatness in his friend.  People used to say that Ignatius Gallaher was wild Of course, he did mix with a rakish set of fellows at that time. drank freely and borrowed money on all sides.  In the end he had got mixed up in some shady affair, some money transaction:  at least, that was one version of his flight.  But nobody denied him talent.  There was always a certain... something in Ignatius Gallaher that impressed you in spite of yourself.  Even when he was out at elbows and at his wits’ end for money he kept up a bold face.  Little Chandler remembered (and the remembrance brought a slight flush of pride to his cheek) one of Ignatius Gallaher’s sayings when he was in a tight corner: 

“Half time now, boys,” he used to say light-heartedly.  “Where’s my considering cap?”

That was Ignatius Gallaher all out; and, damn it, you couldn’t but admire him for it.

Little Chandler quickened his pace.  For the first time in his life he felt himself superior to the people he passed.  For the first time his soul revolted against the dull inelegance of Capel Street.  There was no doubt about it:  if you wanted to succeed you had to go away.  You could do nothing in Dublin.  As he crossed Grattan Bridge he looked down the river towards the lower quays and pitied the poor stunted houses.  They seemed to him a band of tramps, huddled together along the riverbanks, their old coats covered with dust and soot, stupefied by the panorama of sunset and waiting for the first chill of night bid them arise, shake themselves and begone.  He wondered whether he could write a poem to express his idea.  Perhaps Gallaher might be able to get it into some London paper for him.  Could he write something original?  He was not sure what idea he wished to express but the thought that a poetic moment had touched him took life within him like an infant hope.  He stepped onward bravely.

Every step brought him nearer to London, farther from his own sober inartistic life.  A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind.  He was not so old—­thirty-two.  His temperament might be said to be just at the point of maturity.  There were so many different moods and impressions that he wished to express in verse.  He felt them within him.  He tried weigh his soul to see if it was a poet’s soul.  Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament, he thought, but it was a melancholy tempered by recurrences of faith and resignation and simple joy.  If he could give expression to it in a book of poems perhaps men would listen.  He would never be popular:  he saw that.  He could not sway the crowd but he might appeal to a little circle of kindred minds.  The English critics, perhaps, would recognise him as one of the Celtic school by reason of the melancholy tone