oing his own cooking and hurrying with a new book in order
to get enough money to defray the enormous expenses he had incurred by
initiating and prosecuting his divorce suit....

And now Daniel joined us. Daniel and I agreed with each other famously.
For he liked me. He took walks with me, and we went bathing together
after I had done my morning's writing. We crabbed in the Manasquan
River, and fished.

Once, when I was galloping along the road in imitation of a horse, with
him perched on my shoulders--

"Say, Johnnie, I like you ... I won't call you buzzer any more!"

"I like you, too, Daniel, but don't squeeze me so hard about the neck
... it's choking my wind off."

* * * * *

That was a happy month ... that month of fine, fairly warm fall weather
that Darrie, Hildreth, Daniel and I spent together in the little cottage
back in the woods, secluded from the road.

The newspapers had begun to let up on us a little. It had grown a bit
galling and monotonous, the continual misrepresentations of ourselves
and what Hildreth and I were trying to stand for.

* * * * *

Now that I was playing the conventional game of evasion and hypocritic
subterfuge, holding a nominal lodging at Mrs. Rond's as one Mr. Arthur
Mallory, and explaining my being seen with Mrs. Baxter by the statement
that I was a writer sent down by a publishing house for the purpose of
helping her with a book she was engaged in writing--

Though everybody knew well who I was, it assuaged the American passion
for outward "respectability," and we were left, comparatively speaking,
alone to do as we wished....

* * * * *

Hildreth was a spoiled, willful little rogue ... once or twice she tried
a "soul-state" on me....

Walking through the pines one day, suddenly she sat down in her tracks,
began crying, and affirmed in a tragic voice, that she couldn't stand
the strain of what she had been through any longer, that she believed
she was going crazy.

I immediately plumped down on all fours and began running up and down
through the crashing underbrush, growling and making a great racket.
Startled, intrigued, she watched me.

"Johnnie, don't be such a damn fool! What _are_ you doing?"

"I'm going crazy, too, I'm suffering the hallucination that I'm a big
brown bear, and you're so sweet that I'm going to eat you all up."

I ran at her. She leaped up, pealing