The First Day 



best golf. A man with the slightest temperament or receptivity 

 goes all to pieces." And in the next minute's conversation he 

 demonstrated that by the sheer necessity of the game, all the 

 great golf players could be little more than perfectly co-ordinated 

 muscular machines. 



Now comes Rush Street, with its vista of the downtown towers 

 and blocks, in gray silhouettes spiring into the upper air, goldenly 

 luminous, across the half-seen blur of Rush Street bridge on the 

 street level. Wroe is open in admiration of its poetry — not a 

 bit bashful before me in showing how much he really feels the 

 passing romance of a casual street end, the marching procession 

 of towers down the long far-seen front of Michigan Avenue, or 

 the last flash of sunlight on some curl of cloud or lift of wave 

 above the smoke bank, or the city's evening-thrown shadow on 

 the lake front. 



At the Blackstone Hotel I am introduced to Art, of genially 

 large presence and fresh-colored, whose cheerful, boy-like smile, 

 jovial greeting, and handclasp prophesy eloquently of the good 

 fellowship to come, perchance in the closeness of camp life to 

 attain later to the full flower of friendship, for Art is a man who 

 inspires liking on sight. I meet also the charming Mrs. Pratt and 



her sister. Time presses. Art 

 climbs into the machine. There 

 are some more good-byes. The 

 ladies wave a gay farewell. Pres- 

 ently we reach the North West- 

 ern Depot. At the baggage 

 counter, after an exchange of a 

 few words, Wroe turns to me, 

 and says : 



"They won't check that 



bundle of yours, Jimmy. They 



say it isn't baggage — it 's freight." 



"What's the trouble?" 



"Think it's those wood 



panels" (two dozen, and a couple 



of stretched canvases, wrapped 



and corded in blankets.) 



'Art" Myself to baggage clerk, as 



