“I have a great idea found—!—You are a poet? yes? Then you know all about this Free Verse which I read always about in the magazines? Perhaps you can yourself make it? Yes?” His face fairly shone with the inner flame of his project. I found myself harkening against my will. What possible interest could Finchsifter have in verse of any kind—let alone free verse. “This will never do,” I reflected. “If he compels me to listen—then we shall cease to be friends—I came here to rest. I might as well take the first train back to New York!” Finchsifter was still talking. Eyeing me keenly as if mentally debating my trustworthiness—he continued: “If it is sure enough Free, then it don’t cost nothing.” “What are you talking about?” I said, recalled abruptly from my own thoughts. “Free verse!” cried Finchsifter. “That’s my scheme!—but don’t you tell it—It is between only ourselves—fifty-fifty—we split everything—_we_ create the demand—we corner the supply, you and me together corner all the free verse in the United States—in this world for that matter and sell it for—” Again he hesitated—“If I might ask it—about what does a Poet get for such a little piece of poetry? The kind that is not free. A piece so long I mean.”—He measured a sonnet’s width of air between his thumb and fore-finger—“what do you get for that much?” I told him what the magazines pay me. “What! A dollar a line! Gott in Himmel! we make a fortune! That’s what I tell Rebecca—If we corner all the free verse in the United States and sell it for no more as five cents a line—we make our fortune! but a dollar a line!—Himmel!”—he fairly danced for ecstasy and then it was I made the discovery, by which I lost if not a Fortune at least a Finchsifter. I stood still as the tide of words with its flotsam of tossing gestures, continued—I heard nothing. I only waited for Finchsifter to subside. “Am I right!” He gasped at length with what by every law of supply and demand should have been his latest breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”—I replied angrily. “All I know is we’re walking the wrong way.” “What do you mean the wrong way?” said Finchsifter. “The wrong way round the Lake that’s what I mean!” * * * * * I don’t know how long we stood there arguing the question, I only know that his mind was inaccessible to reason, persuasion—even bribery, for, as a last resort, I offered to give him a list of all the best free verse writers in America if he would only listen to reason—nothing would move him—Finchsifter had always walked round the lake from right to left and always would—and what I said about his rubbing its precious plush corsage the wrong way of the nap was all rot. I turned on my heel and left him. Half an hour later when we met at Lover’s Landing which is exactly half way round the Lake we passed without speaking.