We might, I thought, following up the fancy I had just had, begin by being tillers of the soil. We could go West somewhere and take up land. Already I had read many tales of the West and had a fancy for casting in my fortunes with the West. “Out where the smile lasts a little longer, out where the handclasp is a little stronger,” etc. “Oho, for the land where men are men and gals are gals!” I thought my fancy running away like a wild horse broken out of its stall. I saw myself owning vast farms somewhere in the Far West and saw, I am afraid, Nora doing most of the plowing, planting and the harvesting of crops, the while I rode grandly over the estate on a black stallion, receiving the homage of serfs. But what would I do with my odd moments? I had tried talking to Nora of the things that interested me most, the play of light over a factory chimney, seen amid smoke as darkness came on, odd expressions caught from the lips of passing men and women, the play of the fancy over the imagined lives of men and women too. Had Nora understood or cared? Could I go on always talking and talking in the face of the fact that I knew she was not much interested? With a rush of resolution I threw my doubts aside. Oh, to be one who made two blades of grass where but one had grown before! With Nora at my side I would in some field become great and powerful. I was at the moment but a bunged-up fellow lying on the bed in a cheap rooming house but what did that matter? All about me was the great American world rushing on and on to new mechanical and material triumphs. Teddy Roosevelt and the strenuous life had not yet come but he was implicit in the American mood. Imperialism had already come. It was time, I told myself, to be up and doing. Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores; Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said, “Now must we pray, For lo, the very stars are gone. Brave Admr’l speak.” “What shall I say?” “Why say: ‘Sail on, sail on and on.’” NOTE VII JUMPING off the bed I instantly began to try to prepare myself for new adventures. As I had been lying on the bed thinking the thoughts above set down and working myself up to new heights of fancied grandeur some time had passed. Perhaps I had slept and awakened. At any rate it was now dark in the room and I lighted a lamp. By its light and after I had bathed my face for some time it did not look so swollen although both eyes had turned a deep purple. Undaunted I dressed in my best Sunday clothes and prepared to set out. I had engaged to walk with Nora on that evening and it was our custom on such occasions for me to pass quietly out of the house, tapping on the door of her room on the floor below and waiting for her on the front steps.