ous letter, burning with
naive love....

She had once told me how she had scandalised the neighbours by painting
a little boy, in the nude, in that same bungalow ... the story being
carried about by the servants ... and if it had not been for her social
prestige!--

I thought there could be nothing pleasanter than living in her place,
perhaps becoming her lover....

I imagined myself posing, nude, for her canvases....

But my brief hope fell to earth. A curt note from a married sister of
hers ... who first apologised for having read my letter.... But Mrs.
Tighe was abroad, painting in Spain.

The shock of having someone else, indubitably with a hostile eye, read
my letter, in which I had poured forth all my heart, made me almost
sick. I was chagrined inexpressibly.

* * * * *

The truth was, spring was coming on. Spring affects me as it does
migratory fowls. With its first effort of meadow and bough toward
renewed flowers and greenness, the instinct for change and adventure
stirs anew in me.

The school year was not yet up, but I didn't want to graduate.

* * * * *

At that time I had a passion for meeting well-known people.

It was then my only avenue of literary publication, so to speak. The
magazines were steadily returning my deluge of poems--I sent at least
three a week to them ... but to those who had established themselves I
could show my work, and get their advice and notice....

* * * * *

Walking along the main street, I ran into Jack Travers, the young
reporter who had dubbed me the "Vagabond Poet," the "Box-car Bard."...

"Well, what are you up to now, Gregory?"

"Nothing, only I'm thinking of a trip south to Osageville to pay a visit
to Mackworth, the Kansas novelist."

"That's the stuff ... I need another good story for the _Era_."

"I'm going to make it a sort of pilgrimage a-foot."

"Great! 'Vagabond Poet' Pilgrims to Home of Celebrated Kansan. It's only
ninety miles to Osageville from here ... still rather cold of nights ...
but you'll find plenty of shelter by the way ... start to-day and I can
get the story in in time for this Sunday's _Era_...."

Travers got a camera from a fraternity brother.

"Come on, we'll walk up an alley and I'll snap you just as if you were
on the way...."

"No, I won't do that!"

--"won't do what?"

--"won't fake it ... if you want a picture of me on the