o accept.
She did not understand the purpose of these strange and vivid writings
committed to her hands, so different from any of the earlier of Mr.
Banneker's productions; so different, indeed, from anything that she had
hitherto seen in any print. Nor did she derive full enlightenment from
her Elysian journeys with the writer. They seemed to be casual if not
aimless. The pair traveled about on street-cars, L trains, Fifth Avenue
buses, dined in queer, crowded restaurants, drank in foreign-appearing
beer-halls, went to meetings, to Cooper Union forums, to the Art
Gallery, the Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History, to dances in
East-Side halls: and everywhere, by virtue of his easy and graceful
good-fellowship, Banneker picked up acquaintances, entered into their
discussions, listened to their opinions and solemn dicta, agreeing or
controverting with equal good-humor, and all, one might have carelessly
supposed, in the idlest spirit of a light-minded Haroun al Raschid.

"What is it all about, if you don't mind telling?" asked his companion
as he bade her good-night early one morning.

"To find what people naturally talk about," was the ready answer.

"And then?"

"To talk with them about what interests them. In print."

"Then it isn't Elysian-fielding at all."

"No. It's work. Hard work."

"And what do you do after it?"

"Oh, sit up and write for a while."

"You'll break down."

"Oh, no! It's good for me."

And, indeed, it was better for him than the alternative of trying to
sleep without the anodyne of complete exhaustion. For again, his hours
were haunted by the not-to-be-laid spirit of Io Welland. As in those
earlier days when, with hot eyes and set teeth, he had sent up his
nightly prayer for deliverance from the powers of the past--

"Heaven shield and keep us free
From the wizard, Memory
And his cruel necromancies!"--

she came back to her old sway over his soul, and would not be
exorcised.--So he drugged his brain against her with the opiate of
weariness.

Three of his four weeks had passed when Banneker began to whistle at his
daily stent. Thereafter small boys, grimy with printer's ink, called
occasionally, received instructions and departed, and there emanated
from his room the clean and bitter smell of paste, and the clip of
shears. Despite all these new activities, the supply of manuscript for
Miss Westlake's typewriter never failed. One afternoon Banneker knocked
at the door, asked her