But the trail ended with the turning of the page.  There were, indeed, further on, pencil checks against one of the paragraphs as if here the book had raised a faint excitement, but I could not tell whether they sprang up in derision or in approval.  Toward the end there were uncut leaves, as though even my single reader had failed in his persistence.

Being swept once beyond a usual caution, I lamented to my friend F——­ of the neglect in which readers held me, to which the above experience in a library was a rare exception.  F——­ offered me such consolation as he could, deplored the general taste and the decadence of the times, and said that as praise was sweet to everyone, he, as far as he himself was able, offered it anonymously to those who merited it.  He was standing recently in a picture gallery, when a long-haired man who stood before one of the pictures was pointed out to him as the artist who had painted it.  At once F——­ saw his opportunity to confer a pleasure, but as there is a touch of humor in him, he first played off a jest.  Lounging forward, he dropped his head to one side as artistic folk do when they look at color.  He made a knot-hole of his fingers and squinted through.  Next he retreated across the room and stood with his legs apart in the very attitude of wisdom.  He cast a stern eye upon the picture and gravely tapped his chin.  At last when the artist was fretted to an extremity, F——­ came forward and so cordially praised the picture that the artist, being now warmed and comforted, presently excused himself in a high excitement and rushed away to start another picture while the pleasant spell was on him.

Had I been the artist, I would have run from either F——­’s praise or disapproval.  As an instance, I saw a friend on a late occasion coming from a bookstore with a volume of suspicious color beneath his arm.  I had been avoiding that particular bookstore for a week because my book lay for sale on a forward table.  And now when my friend appeared, a sudden panic seized me and I plunged into the first doorway to escape.  I found myself facing a soda fountain.  For a moment, in my blur, I could not account for the soda fountain, or know quite how it had come into my life.  Presently an interne—­for he was jacketted as if he walked a hospital—­asked me what I’d have.

Still somewhat dazed, in my discomposure, having no answer ready, my startled fancy ran among the signs and labels of the counter until I recalled that a bearded man once, unblushing in my presence, had ordered a banana flip.  I got the fellow’s ear and named it softly.  Whereupon he placed a dead-looking banana across a mound of ice-cream, poured on colored juices as though to mark the fatal wound and offered it to me.  I ate a few bites of the sickish mixture until the streets were safe.