help him to live. He
decided on the investment, and, after he had cashed the checks at the
bank down in Oakland, he bought ten dollars' worth of postage stamps. The
thought of going home to cook breakfast in his stuffy little room was
repulsive to him. For the first time he refused to consider his debts.
He knew that in his room he could manufacture a substantial breakfast at
a cost of from fifteen to twenty cents. But, instead, he went into the
Forum Cafe and ordered a breakfast that cost two dollars. He tipped the
waiter a quarter, and spent fifty cents for a package of Egyptian
cigarettes. It was the first time he had smoked since Ruth had asked him
to stop. But he could see now no reason why he should not, and besides,
he wanted to smoke. And what did the money matter? For five cents he
could have bought a package of Durham and brown papers and rolled forty
cigarettes--but what of it? Money had no meaning to him now except what
it would immediately buy. He was chartless and rudderless, and he had no
port to make, while drifting involved the least living, and it was living
that hurt.

The days slipped along, and he slept eight hours regularly every night.
Though now, while waiting for more checks, he ate in the Japanese
restaurants where meals were served for ten cents, his wasted body filled
out, as did the hollows in his cheeks. He no longer abused himself with
short sleep, overwork, and overstudy. He wrote nothing, and the books
were closed. He walked much, out in the hills, and loafed long hours in
the quiet parks. He had no friends nor acquaintances, nor did he make
any. He had no inclination. He was waiting for some impulse, from he
knew not where, to put his stopped life into motion again. In the
meantime his life remained run down, planless, and empty and idle.

Once he made a trip to San Francisco to look up the "real dirt." But at
the last moment, as he stepped into the upstairs entrance, he recoiled
and turned and fled through the swarming ghetto. He was frightened at
the thought of hearing philosophy discussed, and he fled furtively, for
fear that some one of the "real dirt" might chance along and recognize
him.

Sometimes he glanced over the magazines and newspapers to see how
"Ephemera" was being maltreated. It had made a hit. But what a hit!
Everybody had read it, and everybody was discussing whether or not it was
really poetry. The local papers had taken it up, and daily there