I was in such impatience to reach Eos that I did not cross over to Haberford, to drop in on my father. I feared also that my leaving school the second time, "under a cloud," would not win me an enthusiastic welcome from him. * * * * * By nightfall I was well on my way to Eos, sitting in an empty box-car. I had with me my new clothes--which I wore--and my suitcase, a foolish way to tramp. But I thought I might as well appear before Roderick Spalton with a little more "presence" than usual. For I intended spending some time in his community. Characteristically, I had gone to the office of the _Independent_, had not found the editor in, that morning, and had chafed at the idea of waiting till the afternoon, when I might have had a fruitful talk with a man who was interested in the one real thing in my life--my poetry. * * * * * I reached Rochester safely. It was on the stretch to Buffalo that I paid dearly for being well-dressed and carrying a suitcase ... as I lay asleep on the floor of the box-car I was set upon by three tramps, who pinioned my arms and legs before I was even fully awake. I was forced to strip off my clothes, after wrestling and fighting as hard as I could. I floated off into the stars from a blow on the head.... When I came to, I was trembling violently both with cold and from the nervous shock. My assailants had made off with my suitcase ... I was in nothing but my B.V.D.'s and shirt. Even my Keats had been stolen. But beside me I found the ragged, cast-off suit of one of the tramps ... and my razor, which had dropped out of my coat pocket, while the tramp had changed clothes, and not been noticed. Gingerly, I put on the ragged suit.... * * * * * I stood in front of the Eos Artwork Studios. I saw a boy coming down the path from one of the buildings. "Would you tell me please where I can find the Master?" I asked, reverently. The boy gave me a long stare. "Oh, you mean Mr. Spalton?" "Yes." "That's him ... there ... choppin' wood." There was a young man and an older one, both chopping wood, in the back of a building, but in fairly open view. I walked to where they worked with both inward and outward trepidation, for, to me, Spalton was one of the world's great men. Just as I reached the spot, the younger of the two threw down his axe. "So long, Dad! now I'll go into the shop and tend to those letters." I stood in the presence of the great Roderick Spalton himself, the man who, in his _Brief Visits to the Homes of Famous Folk_, had written more meatily and wisely than any American author since Emerson ... the man whose magazine called _The Dawn_, had rendered him an object of almost religious veneration and worship to thousands of Americans whose spirits reached for something more than the mere piling of dollars one on the other....