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and given him to read. He bought a portable typewriter, and all through one night picked patiently at its keys. One product, a sonnet, he despatched to a magazine, and played mentally with the notion that perhaps he was destined to be a poet . . . until it came back, with admirable promptitude and a printed notice to the effect that the editors were sorry and that no reflection on the merits of the manuscript was implied. He abandoned the notion forthwith, snorting, and the typewriter gathered dust.

He read enormously, a heterogeneous, ultra-modern mixture. Michael Arlen, Booth Tarkington, Scott Fitzgerald, because each in his way was fitting to his current mood. James Branch Cabell, Aldous Huxley, Ben Hecht, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Van Vechten, out of curiosity. Fannie Hurst and Edna Ferber because everyone was reading them. Christopher Morley for sheer delight. Somerset Maugham because he had thrilled to the play, Rain. Laurence Hope's Indian Love Lyrics on Yvonne's recommendation. Prancing Nigger by Ronald Firbank because the title caught him. Dancers in the Dark because a photograph of the young writer had called to his youth. The Plastic Age, which annoyed while it entertained him. And, by way of ballast, The Mind in the Making, Emerson's Essays, and Wells' Outline of History—which last, of course, he never finished.

And there was Yvonne.

He had been shocked, the first time he had called on her in her new quarters, to note how cramped and