"For heaven's sake," I once observed, "couldn't you think of anything
more interestingly insane to do than this? It's the slowest, most
painstaking work I ever saw."

"That's just it, and that's just why I like it," he replied, never
looking at me but proceeding with his weaving in the most industrious
fashion. "You have just one outstanding fault, Dreiser. You don't know
how to make anything out of the little things of life. You want to
remember that this is an art, not a job. I'm discovering whether I can
make a Turkish carpet or not, and it gives me pleasure. If I can get so
much as one good spot of color worked out, one small portion of the
design, I'll be satisfied. I'll know then that I can do it, the whole
thing, don't you see? Some of these things have been the work of a
lifetime of one man. You call that a small thing? I don't. The pleasure
is in doing it, proving that you can, not in the rug itself." He clacked
and tied, congratulating himself vastly. In due course of time three or
four inches were finished, a soft and yet firm silky fabric, and he was
in great glee over it, showing it to all and insisting that in time (how
long? I often wondered) he would complete it and would then own a
splendid carpet.

It was at this time that he built about him in Newark a structure of
friendships and interests which, it seemed to me, promised to be for
life. He interested himself intensely in the paper with which he was
connected and although he was only the cartoonist, still it was not long
before various departments and elements in connection with it seemed to
reflect his presence and to be alive with his own good will and
enthusiasm. Publisher, editor, art director, managing editor and
business manager, were all in friendly contact with him. He took out
life insurance for the benefit of the wife and children he was later to
have! With the manager of the engraving department he was working out
problems in connection with copperplate engraving and printing; with the
official photographer, art photography; with the art director, some
scheme for enlarging the local museum in some way. With his enduring
love of the fantastic and ridiculous it was not long before he had
successfully planned and executed a hoax of the most ridiculous
character, a piece of idle drollery almost too foolish to think of, and
yet which eventually succeeded in exciting the natives of at least four
States and was telegraphed to and talked about