Now I was accorded a temporary relief.  Penton Baxter wrote me that he had procured me a patron ...  Henry Belton, the millionaire Single-Taxer, had consented to endow me at fifteen dollars a week, for six months.  I had informed Baxter, in one of my many letters to him—­for we had developed an intimate correspondence—­that I had a unique fairy drama in mind, but could not write it because of the harassment of my struggle for bread and life....  I had laid aside for the present my projected “Judas.”

* * * * *

Singing all the time, I packed my books in a large box which the corner grocer gave me, and, giving up my noisy room over the tinshop, I was off to the Y.M.C.A., where I engaged a room, telling the secretary, who knew me well, of my good luck, and enjoining him not to tell anyone else ... which I promptly did myself....

I selected one of the best rooms, a corner one, with three windows through which floods of light streamed.  It was well-furnished.  The bed was the finest I had ever had to sleep in.

Immediately I went to Locker’s, the smart students’ clothier, and put on a ready-made suit of clothes, of blue serge.  And I charged new shirts and little white collars ... and several flowing ties.  And a fine, new pair of shoes.

“You sure look nifty,” commented Locker, who himself waited on me.

Then I went to a bookstore and plunged recklessly, purchasing Gosse and Garnett’s Illustrated History of English Literature, in four volumes, an expensive set.

I charged everything on the strength of my endowment, and, of course, in order to gain the credit I sought, I showed Baxter’s letter, and pledged each storekeeper not to spread the story....

Before nightfall practically the whole student body knew of my good luck.  And Jack Travers had found me, lying back, luxuriously clad in my newly acquired, big blue bathrobe, in my morris chair....

He looked me over with keen amusement.

Somehow, for several years, my one dream of luxury and affluence had been to own a flowered bathrobe to lounge in, and to wear on the athletic field.  I had hitherto had to be content with a shabby overcoat.

On my new sectional bookcase stood a statue of the Flying Mercury, that my eye might continually drink in my ideal of physical perfection.  Opposite that, stood my plaster cast of Apollo Belvedere, as indicative of the god of song that reigned over my thoughts and life.

* * * * *

“Jack, I want you to come and have supper with me!”

“Johnnie, you are just like a big baby ... all right, I’ll dine with you, after I’ve shot in the story about your endowment to the Star.”

“Hurry up, then,—­it’s after five now.  I’ve never had enough money before, to treat you ... it’s you that have always treated me.”

“Where’ll we dine?”