adapted from Indian Tales
by Rudyard Kipling
His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from aspirations1, of which perhaps his mother was unaware. I met him in a public billiard-saloon. Charlie explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his mother.
That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his fellow-clerks. Soon, he started speaking of himself as a young man must, and told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired to make himself an undying name chiefly through verse. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems of many hundred lines and bulky fragments of plays that would surely shake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence and the self-revelations and troubles of a young man. Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so on the first opportunity; he believed in all things good and all things honorable, but at the same time, he was curiously careful to let me see that he knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk on twenty-five shillings a week. I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I know that his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he told me almost at the outset of our acquaintance, when he was ravaging my bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truth as to his chances of "writing something really great, you know." Maybe I encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes flaming with excitement, and said breathlessly:
"Do you mind—can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I won't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no place for me to write in at my mother's."
"What's the trouble?" I said, knowing well what that trouble was.
"I've a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It's such a notion!.

1. desire to achieve something great

2
How does the perspective affect the plot of the story?
A.
The reader knows what Charlie's mother feels about Charlie.
B.
The reader knows only what Charles sees and believes.
C.
The reader knows only what the narrator thinks and sees.
D.
The reader knows what every character thinks about the other.
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