n me, stupid, like donkeys. If I didn't keep that
point swinging back, when I slacked my pace or stopped they would walk
right up on me...."

* * * * *

Dr. Percival Hammond, managing editor of the New York _Independent_. the
first magazine to print my poems, came to town ... to lecture on his
favourite topic of international peace.

It occurred to me strongly that I ought to afford him some witness of my
gratitude for what his magazine had done for me.

Though broke, I borrowed ten dollars from the owner of a lunch counter
where I ate.

"I want to give a dinner to Dr. Hammond ... his magazine has helped me
as a poet ... it is obvious that I can't give the dinner at your lunch
counter."

Ten dollars was all the lunchcounter man would lend me.

But Walsh Summers of the Bellman House said I could give a luncheon in
honour of Hammond at fifty cents a plate ... he would allot me two
tables ... and a separate room ... and I could invite nineteen
professors ... and he would throw in two extras for Jack Travers and
myself.

I gave the lunch, inviting the professors I liked best.

After dessert and a few speeches I told them how I had borrowed the
money. Hammond privately tried to pay me back out of his own pocket, but
I wouldn't let him.

* * * * *

I asked Hammond if he knew Penton Baxter.

"Yes; we printed his first article, you know ... just as we gave you
your start....

"Baxter is the most remarkable combination of genius and jackass I have
ever run into. But don't ever tell him that I said that. He has no sense
of humour ... everything is of equal import to him ... his toothache is
as tragic as all the abuses of the capitalist system."

* * * * *

On the way to the Great Lakes there are several people I must stop and
see, and show myself to.

I stop at Topeka and visit Dad Rother ... a columnist on a newspaper
there, of more than local fame ... an obviously honest-to-God bachelor
... he is afflicted with dandruff and his hair is almost gone. He shows
me photographs of Mackworth and of Uncle Bill Struthers, each
autographed with accompanying homely sentiment.

I catch myself pretending an interest in Rother's column, but really
actuated by a desire to plant myself in his mind, and to have a notice
in his paper about me ... anything that Dad Rother has in his column is
copied in all the Kansas papers.