ne." Sanbourne seemed to
him an appropriate name for one without an aim in life, and as for
"John," without that standby he would have felt like a man who has
thrown away his clothes. Sanbourne's charcoal sketches, therefore,
began to be talked about; and officers brought him paper and colored
chalks, bargaining with him for a few German war notes, to take their
portraits. By the end of May he had saved up two hundred marks,
accumulated in this way, charging from five to twenty marks for a
sketch, according to size and detailed magnificence of uniform.

Not having given his parole, he was carefully watched at first, but as
time went on his lameness, his exemplary conduct, and air of stoical
resignation deceived his guards. One dark night he slipped away,
contrived to pass the frontier, bribed a Dutch fisherman to sell him
clothing, and after a week of starvation and hardship limped boldly
into Rotterdam. There he parted with the remainder of his earnings
(save a few marks) for a third-class ticket to New York, trusting to
luck that he might earn money on board as he had earned money in camp,
enough at least to be admitted as an emigrant into the United States.
Those few marks which he kept, he invested in artist's materials, and
on shipboard soon made himself something of a celebrity in a small way.
He was nicknamed "the steerage Sargent," and with an hour or two of
work every day put together nearly sixty American dollars during the
voyage. That sum satisfied him. He refused further commissions, for a
great new obsession dominated his whole being, preoccupying every
thought. Absorbed in it, he found his portrait-making exasperating
work. Something within him that he did not understand but was forced to
obey, commanded the writing of a book--the book, not of his life or of
his outside experiences, but of his heart.

He had no idea of publishing this book after it was written. Indeed, at
the beginning, such an idea would have been abhorrent to him. It would
have been much like profaning a sanctuary. But there were thoughts
which seemed to be in his soul, rather than in his brain, so intimate a
part of himself were they; and these thoughts beat with strong wings
against the barrier of silence, like fierce wild birds against the bars
of a cage.

So ignorant was John Denin of book-writing that he did not know at all
how long it would take to put on paper what he felt he had to give
forth. He knew only that he must say wh