Part 2 (1/2)
”What rot!” I said ”Who's going to pose? Where?”
”Well,” he chuckled, ”coot an actual wild ot him I'll have him out here in the woods If you don't believe it, coet the natives worked up Well, they are Look at these,” and he produced clippings fro seen in Essex County, not twenty-five ed the property of people in five different States It was assue, or that he had escaped fro-shi+p wrecked on the Jersey coast (suggestions made by Peter himself) His depredations, all told, had by now run into thousands, speaking financially Staid residents were excited Rewards for his capture were being offered in different places Posses of irate citizens were, and would continue to be, after him, armed to the teeth, until he was captured Quite reht be expected at any timeI stared It seemed too ridiculous, and it was, and back of it all was s Peter, the center and fountain of it!
”You dog!” I protested ”You clown!” Hea denouey of the wilds, I was up early and off the following Sunday to Newark, where in Peter's apartment in due time I found his into a bag, outside an autorapher as well as several others, all grinning, and all of whoreat work of tracking, a the dread peril
”Yes, well, who's going to be him?” I insisted
”Never mind! Never mind! Don't be so inquisitive,” chortled Peter ”A wild es, as well as any other Remember, I caution all of you to be respectful in his presence He's very sensitive, and he doesn't like newspaperraphed, and he'll be wild That's all you need to know”
In due time we arrived at as coht be It was near the old Essex and Morris Canal, not far fro clump of brush and rock was selected, and here a snapshot of a posse hunting,as though they were , wastoward us, hair upstanding, body smeared with black muck, daubs of white about the eyes, little tufts of wool about wrists and ankles and loins--as good a figure of a wild ht feet tall
”Peter!” I said ”How ridiculous! You loon!”
”Have a care how you address nity ”A wild man is a wild man Our punctilio is not to be trifled with I am of the oldest, the most farass with the air of a popular movie star, while he discussed with the art director and photographer theattitudes of a wild man seen by accident and unconscious of his pursuers
”But you're not eight feet tall!” I interjected at one point
”A small matter A smalleasier We wild men, you know--”
So He leered ht or cunning The ood actor For years I retained and may still have soe spread which followed the next week
Well, the thing was appropriately discussed, as it should have been, but the wild ot away, as was feared He went into the nearby canal and washed away all his terror, or rather he vanished into the dim recesses of Peter's memory He was only heard of a few ti found in some town in northeast Pennsylvania--or in the sraphed” froed from the canal, or fro, co his tie
”What a scaible trickster!”
”Dreiser, Dreiser,” he chortled, ”there's nothing like it You should not scoff I am a public benefactor I a as distinct as any that ever lived He is in many minds--mine, yours You know that you believe in hi out froo And he has ive them a new interest If Stevenson can create a Jekyll and Hyde, why can't I create a wild man? I have We have his picture to prove it What more do you wish?”
I acquiesced All told, it was a delightful bit of foolery and art, and Peter hat he was first and forerotesque and the ridiculous
For son in his e and ho it may have been assumed that Peter was out of sympathy with the ordinary routine of life, despised the commonplace, the purely practical As a matter of fact it was just the other way about I never knew a man so radical in some of his viewpoints, so versatile and yet so wholly, intentionally and cravingly, i, developing, brightening life along simple rather than outre lines, in so far as he himself was concerned Nearly all of his arts and pleasures were decorative and hoood tailor, a shoein his way to Peter as any one or anything else, if not a little more so He respected their lines, their arts, their professions, and above all, where they had it, their industry, sobriety and desire for fair dealing He believed thatthe best they could under the very severe conditions which life offered He objected to the idle, the too dull the swindlers and thieves as well as the officiously puritanic or dogmatic He resented, for hiardens, little porches, sihborhoods with their air of routine, industry, convention and order, fascinated hi else could
He insisted that they were enough A reat house unless he was a public character with official duties
”Dreiser,” he would say in Philadelphia and Newark, if not before, ”it's in just such a neighborhood as this that so to have , cat, canary, best Gerarden, my birdbox, my pipe; and Sundays, by God, I'll ular as clockwork, shi+ned shoes, pigtails and all, and I'll lead the procession”
”Yes, yes,” I said ”You talk”
”Well, wait and see Nothing in this world ood old orderly hoht way I' I' ready to eventually settle down and live, just as I tell you, and be an ideal orderly citizen It's the only way It's the way nature intends us to do All this early kid stuff is passing, a sorting-out process We get over it Every fellow does, or ought to be able to, if he's worth anything, find some one woman that he can live with and stick by her That makes the world that you and I like to live in, and you know it There's a psychic call in all of us to it, I think
It's the genius of our civilization, to marry one woman and settle down
And when I do, no ht stuff with this, that and the other lady I'll be athere Don't you think I won't Sarden I'll be friendly with hbors You can come over then and help us put the kids to bed”
”Oh, Lord! This is a new bug now! We'll have the vine-covered cot idea for a while, anyhow”
”Oh, all right Scoff if you want to You'll see”
Tis I have indicated, living in a kind of whirl of life At the saht Once, it is true, I thought it was all over with the little yellow-haired girl in Philadelphia He talked of her occasionally, but less and less Out on the golf links near Passaic he roup that flourished there I , a bit sensuous, rather attractive in dress and ay, clever, up-to-date; such a girl as would pass a other woreatly attracted to her She danced, played a little, was fair at golf and tennis, and she was, or pretended to be, intensely interested in him He confessed at last that he believed he was in love with her