* * * * *

Bob Fitzsimmons stopped off at our town, with his show.  Though I couldn’t afford to attend the performance, I did race down to the station, go up to him, and ask the privilege of a handshake.

His huge, freckled ham of a hand closed over mine in a friendly manner ... which disappeared up to the wrist.  He exchanged a few, simple, shy words with me from a mouth smashed to shapelessness by many blows.  He smiled gently, with kind eyes.

I was prouder of this greeting than of all my growing associations with well-known literary figures.  And I boasted to the boys of meeting “Bob” ... inventing what I said to “Bob” and what “Bob” said to me, ad infinitum.

* * * * *

Though the great athlete shared my admiration with the great writer, yet my staying awake at night writing, my but one meal a day, usually,—­except when I was invited out to a fraternity house or the house of a professor—­and my incessant drinking of coffee and coco-cola to keep my ideas whipped up—­all these things incapacitated me from attaining any high place in athletic endeavour.  I was fair at boxing and could play a good scrub game of football.  But my running, on which I prided myself most—­I entered for the two-mile, one field day, and won only third place.  I had gone back in form since Hebron days.

Dr. Gunning, head of our physical instruction, informed me that, exercise as I might, I could never hope to be stronger or put on more weight ... “you had too many hardships and privations in your growing years ... and you are of too nervous a temperament.”

* * * * *

But my love for Vanna had regularised me somewhat.  I discarded my sandals and bought Oxford ties.  And I preserved a crease in my trousers by laying them, folded carefully, under my mattress every night.  And I took to wearing shirts with white linen collars....

And I kept a picture of the girl I adored, secretly, among my manuscripts—­it was one I had begged of “Con” Cummins, frankly taking him into my confidence as to my state of heart toward Vanna.  Which confidence “Con” never abused, though it might have afforded endless fields of fun.

“Con” framed the picture for me.

When alone with it, I often actually knelt to it, as to a holy image.  And I kissed and kissed it, till it was quite faded away.

* * * * *

Emma Silverman, the great anarchist leader, came to Laurel, with her manager, Jack Leitman.  I went to the Bellman House, the town’s swellest hotel, to see her.  I had never met her but had long admired her for her activities and bravery.