He answered by telegraph and the next morning he received a substantial check at his hall bedroom address. The first thing he bought, he has told me, was a book, an extra-illustrated copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin, from Brentano's in Union Square. Then he went to a tailor and was measured for clothes. Next he visited Brooks Brothers, on Twenty-second Street and Broadway, and purchased a ready-made suit, a hat, shoes and stockings, shirts, and neckties. He took a bath, shaved, had his hair cut, and, dressed in his new finery, embarked for the Knickerbocker in a taxi. He walked into the bar under Maxfield Parrish's King Cole and ordered a Martini cocktail. Then he ate a dinner, consisting of terrapin, roast canvasback, an alligator pear, and a quart or two of Pontet Canet. It was during the course of this dinner that it occurred to him, for the first time in his life, that he would become an author. Four days later he sailed for Paris.
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