avers printed a supposititious interview with Harvey's
English valet on how it felt to be a valet of a great man. Both the
valet and Harvey waxed furious, it was said.

* * * * *

Arthur Brisbane visited us. He ran down from Kansas City over night.
This man was Jack Travers' God ... and we of the Press or Scoop Club--a
student newspaper club of which I had recently been made a member--also
looked up to him as a sort of deity.

Travers informed me reverentially that Brisbane was so busy he always
carried his stenographer with him, even when he rode to the Hill in an
auto ... dictating an editorial as he drove along.

"A great man ... a very great man."

I won merit with Travers by reciting an incident of my factory life.
Every afternoon the men in my father's department would bring in
Brisbane's latest editorial to me ... and listen to me as I read it
aloud. To have the common man buy a newspaper for its editorials--that
was a triumph.

And Brisbane's editorials frequently touched on matters that the mob are
supposed not to be interested in ... stories of the lives of poets,
philosophers, statesmen....

One of the men who could barely read ... who ran his fingers along the
lines as he read, asked me--

"Who was this guy SO-krats?"

It was an editorial on Socrates and his life and death that brought
forth the enquiry ... after I had imparted to him what information I
possessed:

"Where can I find more about him, and about that pal of his, Plato?"

* * * * *

I was hanging on to my comfortable room at the Y.M.C.A. by bluff. I had
not let on to the secretary that my Belton subsidy had stopped. Instead,
I affected to be concerned about its delay. But I did this, not to be
dishonest, but to gain time ... I was attempting to write tramp stories,
after the manner of London, and expected to have one of them accepted
soon, though none ever were....

Decker, the student-proprietor of the restaurant where I ate every day,
was more astute.

"Now look here, Gregory, you just can't run your bill up any higher."

I already owed him fifteen dollars.

I compounded with him by handing him over my _Illustrated History of
English Literature_. It was like tearing flesh from my side to part with
these volumes.

And now I had no more credit at the Y.M.C.A.

And I went back to Frank Randall, to apply again for my old room over
his shop. He was using it now to