ther end of the line."

"By golly, that's true! I never thought of it that way before!"

So conversed the head brakeman and I.

My calves soon grew to know me. They bleated, in a friendly manner, as I
walked by, overseeing them, when the freight stopped.

* * * * *

We had bumped along as far as Buffalo. There the stock were driven down
an incline into yards fenced in with white-washed boards, for their
second rest, required by law,--before launching on the last leg of their
journey down the middle of New York State, and along the Hudson ...
consigned to Stern and Company of New York....

Some of them were to be butchered there and afford apartment-dwellers
lamb stew, tenderloins, and pork chops ... others to be driven aboard
cattleboats, for Europe....

* * * * *

At Buffalo I was ripe for a change. Also I wished to pick up threads of
former experiences and acquaintanceships ... to have a good gossip about
the Eos Art Community ... I called up Laston Meunier who had been at Eos
and whom I had first met there ... who loved bohemian ways, and welcomed
wandering artistic and literary folk at his home in Buffalo.

"Where are you now?" Laston asked, over the phone.

"I'm calling you from the stockyards," and I told him what I was
doing....

"Come on up to my house, and forget your five carloads of calves ...
they can weather through the last jump, to New York, alone ... what does
it matter?... they're going to be butchered in a few days."

Looking about this way and that, to make sure I was unseen, I took my
grip in my hand, hopped aboard a street car outside the stockyards, and
abandoned my calves to their destiny.

Meunier welcomed me. He invited me to stay at his house for several
weeks. His pretty, young wife, smiling whimsically, showed me to a room
she had already set in dainty order for me.

* * * * *

Meunier had gone to his office....

Nichi Swartzman, the tall Japanese genius, showed up, and Bella Meunier,
Nichi, and I ate breakfast together.

Swartzman was, and is, a magnificent talker ... a torch of inspiration
burned brightly in his brain, with continual conversational fire.

But he must have his drink. Several of them. Which Laston's wife poured
for him abundantly.

After breakfast I sprawled on the floor ... I always sprawl on floors
instead of sitting in chairs....

Swartzman and Bella Meunie