One of the "boys" told me the two held silence for a long time--till I was entirely out of sight again, and after. Then one exclaimed, "air they any more luny fellers like thet, back at them Artwork shops?" The incident gave birth to the legend of a crazy man under Spalton's care, whose chief insanity was running naked through snowdrifts. Spalton had three sons. Roderick was the eldest: named after his father. Level-headed and businesslike, he followed his father's vagaries because he saw the commercial possibilities in them ... though he did so more as a practical man with a sense of humour than as a man who was on the make. Spalton, who knew men thoroughly and quickly appraised their individual natures, had installed Roderick in the managing end of things,--there with the aid of an older head--one Alfoxden, of whom Spalton made too much of a boast, telling everyone he had rescued him from a life of crime; Alfoxden, when younger, forged a check and had served his term for it. Coming out into the world again, no one would trust him because of that one mistake, Spalton, at this juncture, took him in and gave him a new chance--but--as I said unkindly, in my mind, and publicly, he made capital of his generous action. But Alfoxden was a soul of rare quality. He never seemed to resent "John's" action. He was too much of a gentleman and too grateful for the real help Spalton had extended to him. Alfoxden was a slight, Mephistophelian man ... with bushy, red eyebrows. And he was totally bald, except for the upper part of his neck, which was fiery with red hair. He had a large knowledge of the Rabelaisan in literature ... had in his possession several rather wild effusions of Mark Twain in the original copy, and a whole MSS. volume of Field's smutty casual verse.... * * * * * But I was in the lumber camp, cooking for the "boys."... "Hank," Spalton's youngest son (there was a second son, whose name I forget ... lived with his mother, Spalton's divorced wife, in Syracuse, and was the conventional, well-brought-up, correct youth)--Hank worked in the camp, along with the other lumber-jacks. The boy was barely sixteen, yet he was six feet two in his stocking feet ... huge-shouldered, stupendous-muscled, a vegetarian, his picture had appeared in the magazines as the prodigy who had grown strong on "Best o' Wheat," a prepared breakfast food then popular. I asked him if the story that he had built his growth and strength on it was a fake. "Yes. I never ate 'Best o' Wheat' in my life, except once or twice," he answered, "I like only natural food ... vegetables ... and lots of milk ... but I draw the line at prepared, pre-digested stuff and baled breakfast foods." "Then why did you lend them the use of your name?" "Oh, everybody that has any prominence does that ... for a price ... but I really didn't want to do it. 'John' made me ... or I wouldn't have." "And now you have your hair cropped close, why is that?"