That night, at supper, I caught my first glimpse of the Eoites in a body.  The contrast between them and my school-folk was agreeably different.  I found among them an atmosphere of good-natured greeting and raillery, that sped from table to table.  And when Spalton strode in, with his bold, swinging gait (it seemed that he had just returned from a lecture in a distant city early that afternoon), there was cheering and clapping.

Guests and workers joined together in the same dining hall, with no distinctive division....  I sat next to Spalton’s table, and a warm glow of pleasure swept through me when he sent me a pleasant nod.

“Hello, Razorre,” he had greeted me; then he had turned to the group at his table and told them about me, I could see by their glances—­but in a pleasant way.

* * * * *

The next morning I was at work in the bindery, smearing glue on the backs of unbound books.  My wage was three dollars a week and “found,” as they say in the West.  Not much, but what did it matter?  There was a fine library of the world’s classics, including all the liberal and revolutionary books that I had heard about, but which I could never obtain at the libraries ... and there were, as associates and companions, many people, who, if extremely eccentric, were, nevertheless, alive and alert and interested in all the beautiful things Genius has created in Art and Song....

Derelicts, freaks, “nuts” ... with poses that outnumbered the silver eyes in the peacock’s tail in multitude ... and yet there was to be found in them a sincerity, a fineness, and a genuine feeling for humanity that “regular” folks never achieve—­perhaps because of their very “regularness.”

* * * * *

Here, at last, I had found another environment where I could “let loose” to the limit ... which I began to do....

In the first place, there was the matter of clothes.  I believed that men and women should go as nearly naked as possible ... clothing for warmth only ... and, as one grew in strength and health through nude contact with living sun and air and water, the body would gradually attain the power to keep itself warm from the health and strength that was in it.

So, in the middle of severe winter that now had fallen on us, I went about in sandals, without socks.  I wore no undershirt, and no coat ... and went with my shirt open at the neck.  I wore no hat....

Spalton himself often went coatless—­in warm weather.  His main sartorial eccentricity was the wearing of a broad-brimmed hat.  And whenever he bought a new Stetson, he cut holes in the top and jumped on it, to make it look more interesting and less shop-new ... of course everybody in the community wore soft shirts and flowing ties.

We addressed each other by first names and nicknames.  Spalton went under the appellation of “John.”  One day a wealthy visitor had driven up.  Spalton was out chopping wood.