y friend F---- of
the neglect in which readers held me, to which the above experience in
a library was a rare exception. F---- offered me such consolation as he
could, deplored the general taste and the decadence of the times, and said
that as praise was sweet to everyone, he, as far as he himself was able,
offered it anonymously to those who merited it. He was standing recently
in a picture gallery, when a long-haired man who stood before one of the
pictures was pointed out to him as the artist who had painted it. At once
F---- saw his opportunity to confer a pleasure, but as there is a touch of
humor in him, he first played off a jest. Lounging forward, he dropped his
head to one side as artistic folk do when they look at color. He made a
knot-hole of his fingers and squinted through. Next he retreated across the
room and stood with his legs apart in the very attitude of wisdom. He cast
a stern eye upon the picture and gravely tapped his chin. At last when the
artist was fretted to an extremity, F---- came forward and so cordially
praised the picture that the artist, being now warmed and comforted,
presently excused himself in a high excitement and rushed away to start
another picture while the pleasant spell was on him.

Had I been the artist, I would have run from either F----'s praise or
disapproval. As an instance, I saw a friend on a late occasion coming from
a bookstore with a volume of suspicious color beneath his arm. I had been
avoiding that particular bookstore for a week because my book lay for sale
on a forward table. And now when my friend appeared, a sudden panic seized
me and I plunged into the first doorway to escape. I found myself facing a
soda fountain. For a moment, in my blur, I could not account for the
soda fountain, or know quite how it had come into my life. Presently an
interne--for he was jacketted as if he walked a hospital--asked me what I'd
have.

Still somewhat dazed, in my discomposure, having no answer ready, my
startled fancy ran among the signs and labels of the counter until I
recalled that a bearded man once, unblushing in my presence, had ordered
a banana flip. I got the fellow's ear and named it softly. Whereupon he
placed a dead-looking banana across a mound of ice-cream, poured on colored
juices as though to mark the fatal wound and offered it to me. I ate a few
bites of the sickish mixture until the streets were safe.

I do not know to what I can attribute my timidity. Possib