to
the fact, that we, who were acquaintances of a single session had joined
our wits to create something that could not be disentangled without its
destruction.

"And now," I said, "who is going to write this tale of the adventures of
the great god Gud?"

"We must write it together," replied Spain, "nothing else would be
honest."

There followed a period of intermittant work that strung out through
several seasons. We worked sometimes alone; at other times I spent
week-ends at Spain's hermitage, and on a few occasions I dragged the
hermit down to my quarters in Greenwich Village. As the manuscript
gathered bulk, I arranged for its typing, having always a copy made for
each of us.

During the summer of 1924, I spent most of the month of July at Spain's
hermitage and we got the book completed, though there were still many
parts of it on which we had serious differences of opinion. Taking my
draft with me, I went back to New York, where I had to attend to some
neglected editorial duties.

Spain had agreed to come down to my place on the week-end of August
thirtieth for a final effort to see if we could reconcile our
differences of opinion.

The intervening weather in the city was oppressive and I did no further
work on the manuscript. When August thirtieth arrived Spain did not show
up. I waited for him another week and then drove my car up to his
hermitage in the Catskills.

I bumped over the stones of the miserable trail and brought my car to a
halt in front of where Spain's house had stood. Before me I saw a
yawning circle of trees with the inner sides scorched and withered, and
the great gaunt stone chimney alone now rearing from a heap of ashes.

The combustion had been complete. Not a charred stick remained. All was
white ash, and well packed down, for it had rained heavily a few nights
before.

The evidence of that rain sent my mind hurtling back in review of the
weather since Spain had left New York. I remembered that one night a few
days before Spain was due to return I had found my apartment so
oppressive that I had gone to Brighton Beach. As I lay on the sands, it
must have been toward midnight, a squall had driven across the sky and
there had been a bit of a blow and a magnificent electrical display, but
only a few heavy drops of rain had fallen.

Brighton Beach was over a hundred miles from this spot in the Catskills,
and the weather in the two locations might have been wholly dissimilar.
Still