Von Hammer wept over the piano, as he found himself free again to play as he wished....

The party was in my honour.  There were present about a dozen guests, picked from Buffalo’s bohemia.  They sat about on the floor on cushions.

Swartzman recited Poe’s Black Cat, with gestures and facial contortions that were terrifying.  His huge, yellow, angular Japanese face grimacing near the ceiling ... he was six foot six, if anything....

His recitation was done so well that, when he had finished, we sat, for a moment, in frightened silence, like children.  Then we stormed him with applause.

“Now play the Danse Macabre,” cried Nichi, to Von Hammer....

“I can’t do it without a violin accompaniment.”

“Try it for me ... and I shall dance the Dance of Death for you.”

Von Hammer said he would do his best ... after much persuasion and a few more drinks....

And Nichi Swartzman danced....

We saw, though we did not know it, the origin of modern futurist dancing there.  Nichi danced with his street clothes on ... wearing his hat, in ghoulish rakishness, tipped down over his eyes ... inter-wreathing his cane with his long, skeletal, twisting legs and arms ... his eyes gleaming cat-like through merest slits....

At three o’clock in the morning we were all drunk.  Before we parted we joined in singing shakily but enthusiastically Down in Bohemia Land.

* * * * *

Meunier, fulfilling his promise to me, paid my fare to New York.  I soon walked into the office of the National Magazine.

Clara Martin was there, and Allsworth Lephil, the managing editor, and his assistant Galusha Siddon.

As I sat in the office, they gave me a sort of impromptu reception.

Ray Sanford strolled in, as fresh-complexioned as an Englishman.  He was, they said, preparing a series of articles on the negro problem.  And I met a little, bustling, sharp-eyed man, with much of the feminine about him,—­his face lifted as if on an intuitive intellectual scent....  Carruthers Heflin ... he wore a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard, like a stage-doctor.  He was busy with a series of articles to be entitled, Babylons of To-day ... exposing the corruption of our modern American cities.

I spoke to them of my projected trip to Europe.

“I think you’re foolish to run off to Europe just at this time in your life.  Now is the time you should establish yourself here.  Besides, Jarvis Mackworth has written us that you’re writing a book while Derek, the Chicago millionaire, stakes you.”

“Yes, that’s true.  But couldn’t I write it in Europe as well as here?”

“You’d find too many distractions.”

“Where would you go first?” asked Clara Martin.

“Paris!”

“That would be absolutely fatal for a young man of your disposition.  You need to sit quiet and write for a few years ... you’ve been over the map too much already.”