Chapter IV.—Undergraduate days. Violently intellectual period.—Devouring ambition to become literary mandarin.—Gave up games and became a bookworm.—Commenced to write, but disdained anything less than an epic.—Favourite literature: The French decadents.
Chapter V.—Adolescence. Violently histrionic period.—Devouring ambition to become a second Mansfield.—Joined the Cruel Chicago Company as general utility.—Chief literature: The theatrical rags.
Chapter VI.—Manhood. At age of twenty-one wrote The Haunted Taxicab, and scored immediate success.—Devouring ambition to write the Great American Novel.—Published nine more books in next five years, and managed to hold my own.
There you are—down to the time of which the present record tells. And now, in accordance with the plot, let me continue.
On a certain muggy morning of late November, a young man of conspicuously furtive bearing might have been seen climbing aboard the steamer bound for Naples. He wore the brim of his velour hat turned down, with the air of one who entirely wishes to avoid observation.
Over one arm hung a mackintosh, and at the end of the other dangled an alligator-skin suitcase. An inventory of its contents would have resulted as follows: A silk-lined, blue serge suit; three silk négligé shirts; three suits silk pyjamas; three suits silk underwear; three pairs silk socks; several silk ties, and sundry toilet articles.
If, in the above list, an insistence on the princely fabric is to be remarked, I must confess that I shrink from the contact of baser material. It was then with some dismay that I descended into the bowels of the ship, and was piloted to my berth by a squinting steward in shirt-sleeves. I gazed with distaste at the threadbare cotton blanket that was to replace the cambric sheets of the mighty. Then I looked at the oblique-eyed one, and observed that nonchalantly over his arm was hung another blanket of more sympathetic texture, and that his palm protruded in a mercenary curve. So into that venial hollow I dropped half a dollar, and took the extra blanket. Then throwing my suitcase on the berth, I went on deck.
Shades of Cæsar! Garibaldi! Carusa! What had I “gone up against”? One and all my fellow passengers seemed to be of the race of garlic eaters. Not a stodgy Saxon face among them. Verily I was marooned in a sea of dagos. Here we were, caged like cattle; above us, a tier of curious faces, the superior second class; still higher, looking down with disdain, the fastidious firsts. And here, herded with these degenerate Latins, under these derisive eyes, must I remain many days. What a wretched prospect! What rotten luck! And all the fault of these gad-about Chumley Graces, confound them!
But I did not lament for long. If ever there is an opening for the sentimentalist it is on leaving for the first time his native land. Could it be expected, then, that I, a professional purveyor of sentiment, would be silent? Nay! as I watched the Statue of Liberty diminish to an interrogation mark, I delivered myself somewhat as follows:
“Grey sea, grey sky, and grey, so grey