propped the door wide open so
the poor fellow could have a breeze and not smother. He told this
downtown the next morning, and he was beginning to look right puzzled
indeed. He said the wayward child of Nature had got up after about half
an hour and shut all the windows and the door. Lon thought first he was
intending to commit suicide, but he didn't like to interfere. He was
telling Jeff Tuttle and me about it when we happened to pass his office.

"'And there's another funny thing,'" he says. 'This chap was telling us
all the way up home last night that he never ate meat--simply fruits and
nuts with a mug of spring water. He said eating the carcasses of
murdered beasts was abhorrent to him. But when we got down to the table
he consented to partake of the roast beef and he did so repeatedly. We
usually have cold meat for lunch the day after a rib roast, but there
will be something else to-day; and along with the meat he drank two
bottles of beer, though with mutterings of disgust. He said spring water
in the hills was pure, but that water out of pipes was full of typhoid
germs. He admitted that there were times when the grosser appetites
assailed him. And they assailed him this morning, too. He said he might
bring himself to eat some chops, and he did it without scarcely a
struggle. He ate six. He said living the nauseous artificial life even
for one night brought back the hateful meat craving. I don't know. He is
undeniably peculiar. And of course you've heard about Pettikin's affair
for this evening?'

"We had. Just before leaving the house I had received Henrietta's card
inviting me to the country club that evening 'to meet Mr. Wilfred
Lennox, Poet and Nature Lover, who will recite his original verses and
give a brief talk on "The World's Debt to Poetry."' And there you have
the whole trouble. Henrietta should have known better. But I've let out
what women really are. I told Alonzo I would sure be among those
present, I said it sounded good. And then Alonzo pipes up about Ben
Sutton coming to town on the eleven forty-two from the West. Ben makes a
trip out of Alaska every summer and never fails to stop off a day or two
with Lon, they having been partners up North in '98.

"'Good old Ben will enjoy it, too,' says Alonzo; 'and, furthermore, Ben
will straighten out one or two little things that have puzzled me about
this poet. He will understand his complex nature in a way that I confess
I have been unequal to. What I