to retail in order to illustrate what
havoc habit can work on even the brightest psychologies. Earl Bowles (a
descendant of Senator Didcot Bowles--beloved by all) in his rather wordy
dissertation on "Intellects of the Hour" presents to us perhaps the most
vivid picture of the scene.

"Harvey Pricklebott, for several years editor of 'Art in the Home,'
leant forward to the dazed Spout and requested him to pass a plate of
cold tongue which was lying near. With businesslike alacrity Spout did
so--and then before anyone could prevent it--detached from his belt a
delicatessen payment check for 25 cents and pushed it across the table."

"There was a dreadful silence--Spout realising his appalling error
endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a
moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been
suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout!
What Humour! What Roguery! Spout the Brilliant!'"

After this serio-comic contretemps every remark Spout made was hailed by
all as a gem of superlative wit.

From the moment of his entrance into the Coffee House, Spout's career
was assured--encouraged by his amazing success in a milieu to which many
aspired but few attained, he at once wrote about it, probably his most
world-famed novel, "The Continuous Fall of Harriet Ramsbotham." To say
that this daring attack upon existing social conditions caused a
sensation is to put the case mildly--it was a positive literary _tour de
force_. Take for example the extraordinarily vital passage in volume
two--when Harriet is insulted by Donald at a soda fountain, or the
sordidly realistic moment in volume three when she is horsewhipped by
Frederick on Long Beach--and above all perhaps those few tense seconds
in volume one when Norman having lured her to Childs' for supper brands
her left thigh with a flat-iron. Immediately upon publication of this
masterpiece Spout received five hundred and ninety-four letters from
anxious mothers, eight hundred and two requests for sexual advice from
oppressed governesses and several threatening telegrams from the police.

The ordinary everyday novelist would at once have become bombastic and
conceited at being the cause of such a universal upheaval--not so Spout.
He retired quite quietly to his cosy kitchenette apartment in Harlem and
wrote that charming and winsome essay in sentiment "Mollie's
Holiday"--which in due course he followed with h