After that, Pfeiler avoided me.  I went up to him in apology.  Most contritely I said I was sorry.

“You are a fraud,” he cried at me, spluttering, almost gnashing his teeth in fury, “you go around here, pretending you are a poet, and have the soul of a thug, a brute, a coward and bully ... please don’t speak to me any more as long as I’m here ... you only pretend interest in spiritual and intellectual things, always for some brutal reason ... even now you are planning something base, some diabolical betrayal of the Master, perhaps, or of all of us....  I myself have advised Mr. Spalton, for the good of his community to send you back to the tramps and jail-birds from whom you come ... you scum! you filthy pestilence!”

His head was shaking like an oscillating toy ... his eyes were starting from his head through force of his invective ... he was jerking about, in his anger, like a dancing mouse....

I hurried out of his word-range, overwhelmed with greater shame than I can ever say.

* * * * *

The editor of the Independent, Dr. William Hayes Ward, had, so far, not found room in his magazine for the two poems of mine he had bought.  I was chagrined, and wrote him, rather impetuously, that, if he didn’t care for the poems he might return them.  Which he did, with a rather frigid and offended reply.  I was rendered unhappy by this.

I spoke to Spalton about it.

“Why Razorre, so you have come that near to being in print?” I showed him the poems.  “Yes, you have the making of a real poet in you!”

A day or so after he approached me with—­“I’m writing a brief visit to the home of Thoreau ... how would you like to compose a poem for me, on him—­for the first page of the work?”

“I would like it very much,” I said.  In a few days I handed him the poem.  A “sonnet,” the form of which I myself had invented, in fifteen lines.

* * * * *

For days I lived in an intoxication of anticipation ... just to have one poem printed, I was certain, would mean my immediate fame ... so thoroughly did I believe in my genius.  I was sure that instantly all of the publishers in the world would contend with each other for the privilege of bringing out my books.

Spring had begun to give hints of waking green, when The Brief Visit was issued from the press.  I rushed to procure a copy before it was bound.  I was surprised and dumbfounded to find that the Master had used the poem without my name attached ... just as if it, with the rest of the book, was from his own pen.

My first impulse was to rush into the dining hall, at breakfast, Waving the sheets, and calling “John” to account for his theft, before everybody ... then I bethought myself that, perhaps, some mistake had been made ... that the proofreader might have left my name out.

Spalton looked up quickly as I passed by his table.  He read in my face that I had already discovered what he had done.  He blushed.  I nodded him a stiff greeting.  I ate in silence—­at the furthest table.