ragtime, played it through first
in straight chords; then varied and developed it through every known
musical form. I sat amazed. I had been turning classic music into
ragtime, a comparatively easy task; and this man had taken ragtime and
made it classic. The thought came across me like a flash--It can be
done, why can't I do it? From that moment my mind was made up. I
clearly saw the way of carrying out the ambition I had formed when a
boy.

I now lost interest in our trip. I thought: "Here I am a man, no
longer a boy, and what am I doing but wasting my time and abusing my
talent? What use am I making of my gifts? What future have I before me
following my present course?" These thoughts made me feel remorseful
and put me in a fever to get to work, to begin to do something. Of
course I know now that I was not wasting time; that there was nothing
I could have done at that age which would have benefited me more than
going to Europe as I did. The desire to begin work grew stronger each
day. I could think of nothing else. I made up my mind to go back into
the very heart of the South, to live among the people, and drink in my
inspiration firsthand. I gloated over the immense amount of material
I had to work with, not only modern ragtime, but also the old slave
songs--material which no one had yet touched.

The more decided and anxious I became to return to the United States,
the more I dreaded the ordeal of breaking with my millionaire. Between
this peculiar man and me there had grown a very strong bond of
affection, backed up by a debt which each owed to the other. He had
taken me from a terrible life in New York and, by giving me the
opportunity of traveling and of coming in contact with the people with
whom he associated, had made me a polished man of the world. On the
other hand, I was his chief means of disposing of the thing which
seemed to sum up all in life that he dreaded--time. As I remember him
now, I can see that time was what he was always endeavoring to escape,
to bridge over, to blot out; and it is not strange that some years
later he did escape it forever, by leaping into eternity.

For some weeks I waited for just the right moment in which to tell my
patron of my decision. Those weeks were a trying time to me. I felt
that I was playing the part of a traitor to my best friend. At length,
one day he said to me: "Well, get ready for a long trip; we are going
to Egypt, and then to Japan." The temptation was