hat there was no water in sight and that my
garden was only a truck patch. On the other hand, if my neighbors in
West Salem thought of me as living in a handsome brick mansion in
Chicago, and writing my stories in a spacious study walled with books, I
was not obliged to undeceive them.

Fuller, alas! knew all the facts in both cases, and so did Ernest
Seton, who had visited us in the country as well as in our city home.
Fuller not only knew the ins and outs of my houses; he was also aware
that my royalties were dwindling and that my wife was forced to get
along with one servant and that we used the street cars habitually.

Being president of the Cliff Dwellers was an honor, but the distinction
carried with it something of the responsibility of a hotel-keeper as
well as the duties of a lecture agent, for one of our methods in
building up attendance at the Club, was to announce special luncheons in
honor of distinguished visitors from abroad, and the task of arranging
these meetings fell usually to me. In truth, the activities of the club
took a large part of my time and carried a serious distraction from my
work, but I welcomed the diversion, and was more content in my Chicago
residence than I had been for several years.

Whenever I spoke to Zulime of my failure as a money-getter she loyally
declared herself rich in what I had given her, although she still rode
to grand dinners in the elevated trains, carrying her slippers in a bag.
It was her patient industry, her cheerful acceptance of endless
household drudgery which kept me clear of self-conceit. I began to
suspect that I would never be able to furnish her with a better home
than that which we already owned, and this suspicion sometimes robbed me
of rest.

This may seem to some of my readers an unworthy admission on the part of
a man of letters but it is a perfectly natural and in a sense, logical
result of my close associations with several of the most successful
writers and artists of my day. It was inevitable that while contrasting
my home with theirs, I should occasionally fall into moods of
self-disparagement, almost of despair.

To see my wife (whom everybody admired) wearing thread-bare cloaks and
home-made gowns, to watch her making the best of our crowded little
dining-room with its pitiful furniture and its sparse silver, were
constant humiliations, an accusation which embittered me especially as I
saw no prospect of ever providing anything more worthy