a farm article rather than the frontispiece to an American epic. Still,
if for a friend I could grasp a farm problem with that executive
enthusiasm, had I any reason to doubt that I would have any trouble in
helping along an epic of American life? I decided that I would not, and
settled down to find out about the eleven-foot Belgian before I crept
off for a nap, when an interruption came and I had to prop my eyes open.
It was Eph with a letter and the information that Redwheels had shed a
bolt in its flight last night. I settled the bolt question with a
quarter and turned to the letter. It was from Peter, and I knew by the
amount of ink splashed all over the envelope that it must contain a high
explosive splashed on the inside.

Peter Vandyne really is a wonderful man, and he will enrich American
letters greatly after he has had time to live a lot of the things he has
planned to write. Farrington, the great producer and dramatist, had read
the first act of his epic and said good things about it, Farrington is
not a friend of Peter's sister, Mabel, nor does he own or want to buy
any of Judge Vandyne's stock in railroads or things. He's just really
the dean of the American stage. Could anybody blame Peter if he had used
ten pounds of paper, if paper comes by the pound, and a quart of ink
telling about it? But he didn't; about five of the seven pages were all
about me and Farrington. I never was so astonished. The morning I got
home I had written Peter about how all my friends had been glad to see
me, and the way the different ones had shown it, and Peter had read that
part to Mr. Farrington and he had said that Peter ought to get me to
supply some of the human comedy that Peter's play lacked. Peter knows so
much about life from his literary researches that it goes off and hides
from him when he sets out in search for it, and I understood immediately
what the great dramatist meant, though Peter probably did not.