eing made to worry about
it, for a year....

"Can't you help me to a millionaire?"

Mackworth answered me generously, affectionately.

In two weeks he had procured my millionaire ... Derek, of Chicago, the
bathtub magnate ... how much could I get on with?

I wrote that I could do with seven dollars a week....

Mackworth replied not to be a fool--that Derek was willing to make it
fifteen, for a year's duration....

I replied that I could only take enough to fill my simplest wants....

Derek jocosely added fifty cents to the sum I asked--"for postage
stamps"-- ... for one year, week in, week out, without a letter from me
except those indicating changes of address, without sending me a word of
advice, criticism, or condemnation, no matter what I got into ... Derek
sent me that weekly stipend of seven dollars and fifty cents!...

* * * * *

I settled down to consecutive literary work.

Lyrics I could write under any condition. They came to me so deeply from
the subconscious that at times they almost seemed like spirit-control,
which, at times, I am sure they had been, till I set the force of my
will against them. For I was resolved that what _I_ wrote should be an
emanation from my own personality, not from dead and gone poets who used
me for a medium.

But when it came to long and consecutive effort, the continual petty
worry of actual penury sapped my mind so that I lacked the power of
application....

With Derek's remittances this obstacle was removed....

I had soon completed the first act of my apostolic play....

And then I plunged into a scrape, together with my fellow members of the
press or "Scoop Club," as it was more popularly known, which halted my
work mid-way....

* * * * *

Our common adventure derived its inception from a casual remark of Jack
Travers', at one of our meetings....

Ever since Arthur Brisbane had come to Laurel, Jack had been on his
toes....

"Brisbane brought me a breath of what it must mean to be a big newspaper
man in the world outside," said Travers, as he stretched and yawned,
"why don't we," he continued, "_start_ something to show 'em we're
alive, and not dead like so many of the intellects on the Hill!"

"--s all right to talk about starting something ... that's easy to do.
The hell of it is, to stop it, after you've got it started,"
philosophised "The Colonel"....

"Just what is it that you propose