40 ADVENTURES IN IDEALISM 



looked like that before! From factory to factory, 

 from village to village he walked. Hardly ever did 

 anybody refuse to buy, and he would come home ex- 

 hausted, with an empty valise. Still, after two months 

 of very hard work he found that he could not provide 

 suitably for himself and his family. 



Meanwhile our friends had written us advising us 

 to return to New York City. They had heard of 

 the wonderful success my husband was making in 

 manufacturing and selling perfumes. The five months 

 of our stay in Pittsfield had, indeed, been beneficial 

 in one way. We lived there among Americans only, 

 and nolens volens we had to speak English; so that, 

 in the five months we learned to converse in that lan- 

 guage. Back to New York now my husband went in 

 search of work. After fruitless wandering for two 

 weeks, he was told by a friend, studying at Columbia 

 University that same Dr. Kaplan that one Henry 

 Rice was looking for a chemistry tutor for his son. 

 My husband went to see Mr. Rice, whose son was to 

 be prepared for the Columbia entrance examination. 

 Everything was comfortably settled, when the ques- 

 tion of a laboratory came up. Fortunately Dr. Kaplan 

 knew a professor, Baron de Taube, a Russian by birth, 

 who kept a private preparatory school for boys. My 

 husband went to see him, and Baron de Taube was 

 more than pleased to allow the use of his laboratory. 

 So the very next day the agreement with Mr. Rice to 

 prepare his son for college, teaching him daily from 



