So have I.

JONATHAN

Did you ever run away?

NATHANIEL

Yes--when I was eighteen.

JONATHAN

Oh!

NATHANIEL (_taking up paper_)

The message ought to be short.

JONATHAN

Why did you run away?

NATHANIEL

I wanted to write.

JONATHAN

You did!

NATHANIEL

Didn't you know I ran away?

JONATHAN

No, sir; they never would tell me what became of you.

NATHANIEL

They didn't know.

JONATHAN

How could you keep it from them?

NATHANIEL

I changed my name--Mr. Alexander Jefferson, Sr! What shall I say?

JONATHAN

I can't think.... Did Uncle John lock you in?

NATHANIEL

No, I just ran away.

JONATHAN

How long did it take you to make up your mind to go?

NATHANIEL

I thought about it first when I was twelve. My father was still living then.

JONATHAN

Did you go to Somerset School?

NATHANIEL

Yes--for three years.

JONATHAN

What did you do after you ran away?

NATHANIEL

I had a very hard time, my boy--at first. I worked at anything I could get, then I got into a newspaper office, then I wrote "autobiographies" of famous men.

JONATHAN

I thought you had to write your own autobiography--

NATHANIEL

Not nowadays. Then I wrote some successful short stories, then some very successful long ones--and now I am independent; but it took me ten bitter years to make my first success.... What shall I write here?

JONATHAN

I never could think of things to say when I was going away.

NATHANIEL

Neither could I.

JONATHAN