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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
