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.
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