m to forgive me, which he did. And, as I pronounced
him to be as great at Shelley, the Rousseau of America--his naive,
youthful face wreathed with smiles and peace fell between us again.

* * * * *

"I am thinking of going to live at Eden, the Single Tax Colony not far
from Philadelphia ... I want you to come there and visit us in the
spring. In the meantime don't let them make you bourgeois in Kansas ...
don't let them smash you into the academic mould."

"They haven't so far, have they?"

"But what in the world are you going back to Kansas for?"

"Because I have them trained there to accept me. I can do pretty much
as I choose at the university. But mainly I want to write my four-act
play in earnest--my New Testament drama, _Judas_. And I know of no
better place to go to."

"Good-bye, and don't fail to pay me a visit in the spring."

"I will ... for a few weeks ... on my way to Paris."

"Paris? How are you going to get there?"

"I'll take a few cars of cattle east to New York from the Kansas City
stock yards ... and I'll work my way across on a cattle boat."

"Good-bye! I wish I had your initiative!"

"Good-bye! Mrs. Baxter ... glad to have met you!"

"Good-bye, Mr. Gregory," and she dropped my hand quickly and turned on
her heel, walking away with easy grace. I admired the back of her legs
as she disappeared into her tent.

"Good-bye, Dan!"

"Good-bye, Buzzer!"

"Daniel," called Mrs. Baxter from the interior of her tent, "you mustn't
call Mr. Gregory that!"

* * * * *

At Laurel again, I found it still a month before fall session. All
summer I had lacked my nude sunbaths to which I had become accustomed.
So again I sought my island.

* * * * *

I rented my room over the tinshop again, and was soon in the thick of
the fall term. By this time I had my contemporaries on the hill very
much puzzled.

Henry Belton, the Single Tax millionaire, had come to Kansas City. He
was so diminutive as to be doll-like. He had to stand on a box to be
seen, when he spoke from the floor, at the banquet tendered him ... and
I had gone in to Kansas City as his guest, and had been seated on his
right hand--I, in my painfully shabby clothes.

The professors and students could not see why I made such a stir with
prominent people, how I held their friendship despite my eccentricities
and deep poverty.

* *