In this growth of the commercial printing involving lay-outs and supervision, together with trying to edit and publish an art magazine, I had waded far beyond my depth. When I was starting my Wayside Press in Springfield a business man had advised: “Learn to creep before you try to walk, and learn to walk before you try to run.” I had tried to run before even learning to creep. Mr. Moses gave me what I am now sure was much good business advice--but, alas, I was temperamentally unfitted to listen and learn and, knowing nothing about finances, was eventually overwhelmed and broke under the strain and had to go away for a complete rest. With no one trained to carry on in my absence it was necessary to cease publication of _Bradley: His Book_ and in order to insure delivery on time of the catalogs and other commercial printing, forms were lifted from the presses and transferred to the University Press at Cambridge; and the Wayside Press as a unit, including name and goodwill and my own services, soon followed--a hurried and ill-conceived arrangement that eventually proved so mutually unsatisfactory that I faded out of the picture. This was a heart-breaking decision for me, and one that but for the wisdom of my wife and her rare understanding and nursing could have resulted in a long and serious illness. No printing and publishing business ever started with finer promise and more youthful enthusiasm than did the Wayside Press and the publication of _Bradley: His Book_, that are now just memories. Among other magazine covers designed during this period there is one for a Christmas number of _Century_. It brings a request for a back-cover design. Both designs are in wood-cut style and require four printings--black and three flat colors. The DeVinne Press, familiar only with process colors, hesitates to do the printing. That issue carries a Will Bradley credit. When John Lane imports sheets of the _Studio_, edits an American supplement and publishes an American edition, I design the covers. [Illustration] INTERLUDE IN NEW YORK And now we are in the Gay Nineties, the mid Gay Nineties, when a hair-cloth sofa adorns every parlor and over-decoration is running riot; when our intelligentsia are reading Anthony Hope’s _Prisoner of Zenda_, Stanley Weyman’s _Gentlemen of France_ and George McCutcheon’s _Graustark_; when William Morris is printing _Chaucer_, with illustrations by Burne-Jones, and Aubrey Beardsley is providing an ample excuse for the _Yellow Book_; when LeGallienne’s _Golden Girl_ is brought over here by John Lane and established in a bookshop on lower Fifth Avenue, and Bliss Carman is singing his songs of rare beauty; when the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the nearby Algonquin are flourishing Madison Square hostelries; when Stern’s and McCreery are across the street from Putnam’s and Eden Musee, and the modern skyscraper is only an architect’s vague dream.