seemed, with a kind of savage skill to reduce what he conceived to be my lofty superiority. At times I thought he ought to be killed--like a father meditating on an unruly son--but the mood soon passed and his literary ability made amends for everything. In so far as the magazine was concerned, once it began to grow and attract attention he was for me its most important asset; not that he did so much directly as that he provided a definite standard toward which we all had to work. Not incuriously, he was swiftly recognized for what he was by all who came in touch with the magazine. In the first place, interested in his progress, I had seen to it that he was properly introduced wherever that was possible and of benefit to him, and later on, by sheer force of his mental capacity and integrity, his dreams and his critical skill, he managed to center about him an entire band of seeking young writers, artists, poets, playwrights, aspiring musicians; an amusing and as interesting a group as I have ever seen. Their points of rendezvous appeared to be those same shabby quick-lunches in back streets or even on the principal thoroughfares about Times Square, or they met in each other's rooms or my office at night after I had gone, giving me as an excuse that they had work to do. And during all this time the air fairly hummed with rumors of new singers, dancers, plays, stories being begun or under way, articles and essays contemplated; avid, if none too well financed frolics or bohemian midnight suppers here and there. Money was by no means plentiful, and in consequence there was endless borrowing and "paying up" among them. Among the most enthusiastic members of this circle, as I had begun to note, and finally rather nervously, were my art-director, a valiant knight in Bohemia if ever there was one, and she of Bryn Mawr-Wellesley standards. My makeup editor, as well as various contributors who had since become more or less closely identified with the magazine, were also following him up all the time.