Though broke, I borrowed ten dollars from the owner of a lunch counter where I ate.
"I want to give a dinner to Dr. Hammond ... his magazine has helped me as a poet ... it is obvious that I can't give the dinner at your lunch counter."
Ten dollars was all the lunchcounter man would lend me.
But Walsh Summers of the Bellman House said I could give a luncheon in honour of Hammond at fifty cents a plate ... he would allot me two tables ... and a separate room ... and I could invite nineteen professors ... and he would throw in two extras for Jack Travers and myself.
I gave the lunch, inviting the professors I liked best.
After dessert and a few speeches I told them how I had borrowed the money. Hammond privately tried to pay me back out of his own pocket, but I wouldn't let him.
I asked Hammond if he knew Penton Baxter.
"Yes; we printed his first article, you know ... just as we gave you your start....
"Baxter is the most remarkable combination of genius and jackass I have ever run into. But don't ever tell him that I said that. He has no sense of humour ... everything is of equal import to him ... his toothache is as tragic as all the abuses of the capitalist system."