reared in Bloomington, Illinois, were of the utmost artistic import. He
had vaulting ambitions and pretensions, literary and otherwise, having
by now composed various rondeaus, triolets, quatrains, sonnets, in
addition to a number of short stories over which he had literally slaved
and which, being rejected by many editors, were kept lying idly and
inconsequentially and seemingly inconspicuously about his place--the
more to astonish the poor unsophisticated "outsider." Besides it gave
him the opportunity of posing as misunderstood, neglected, depressed, as
becomes all great artists, poets, and thinkers.

His great scheme or dream, however, was that of marriage to an heiress,
one of those very material and bovine daughters of the new rich in the
West end, and to this end he was bending all his artistic thought,
writing, dressing, dreaming the thing he wished. I myself had a marked
tendency in this direction, although from another point of view, and
speaking from mine purely, there was this difference between us: Dick
being an artist, rather remote and disdainful in manner and decidedly
handsome as well as poetic and better positioned than I, as I fancied,
was certain to achieve this gilded and crystal state, whereas I, not
being handsome nor an artist nor sufficiently poetic perhaps, could
scarcely aspire to so gorgeous a goal. Often, as around dinnertime he
ambled from the office arrayed in the latest mode--dark blue suit,
patent leather boots, a dark, round soft felt hat, loose tie blowing
idly about his neck, a thin cane in his hand--I was already almost
convinced that the anticipated end was at hand, this very evening
perhaps, and that I should never see him more except as the husband of a
very rich girl, never be permitted even to speak to him save as an
almost forgotten friend, and in passing! Even now perhaps he was on his
way to her, whereas I, poor oaf that I was, was moiling here over some
trucky work. Would my ship never come in? my great day never arrive? my
turn? Unkind heaven!

As for Peter he was the sort of person who could swiftly detect,
understand and even sympathize with a point of view of this kind the
while he must laugh at it and his mind be busy with some plan of making
a fol-de-rol use of it. One day he came into the city-room where I was
working and bending over my desk fairly bursting with suppressed humor
announced, "Gee, Dreiser, I've just thought of a delicious trick to play
on Dick! Oh, Lo