S I HAVE SAID, I kept my record up. On Saturday night Mr. Carlton came over to my stand and asked, "Would you like a stand in the front-room, Branden?"
"No," I replied "If I had my choice, I should take Roddy's stand. I believe that would give me a chance to make some money."
"As you please," said Mr. Carlton. "I can take Roddy to the front. You are making good; I want to help you. Your wages will be eight dollars, beginning with Monday. That's settled, then."
And he took his grey presence away.
I pondered a good deal about Mr. Carlton. How could he let things go as they were in kitchen and dressing-rooms? He was quick enough to notice a spot on a tablecloth. I came to the conclusion that, shrewd as he was in his business, he too was hidebound in those things which he had always taken for granted. Dressing-rooms had in his experience always been a litter of filth; kitchens had always been places to be left to the negligence of subordinates; flies had always been fought by poisonous fly-pads. Nor did he balk at what was prepared behind the swinging doors.
Of his ability in handling men I had no doubt. He spoke in one tone to me, in a different one to Jim -- though during the rush-hour this difference disappeared; at that time he spoke to Mr. Cox, the captain, just as he would have done to a mere helper.
Beginning with my third week, I made money. I can no longer give accurate figures except for my last or seventh week in the place. That week the total of my tips

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amounted to between sixty-nine and seventy dollars, an average of over ten dollars a day. The daily average for the last four weeks probably ran as high as eight dollars. The owners had nothing to object to my making that much money, for during the whole of that period I also ranked first among all the waiters in the amount of checks turned in. Probably Frank would have outranked me had he charged everything he served. As it was, my daily business averaged about eighty dollars, and Frank ran a bad second with sixty or thereabouts.
The major part of my income was made at night; which means that I secured as steady customers men who did not consider the coat and went where they found the service they wanted.
In order to make clear how things worked out, I will quote a few examples which have lingered in my memory, possibly by virtue of their oddity.
One night, at a quarter past eleven, a large party, heavily loaded down with suitcases and satchels, entered the place, apparently fresh from a train or boat. The party was made up of a powerfully built, typically Yankee, clean-shaven man of about fifty, a dignified matron, two grown-up girls, a high-school boy, and three younger children, eight in all. They somehow drifted through the front-room and reached the steps, for except during the rush-hours Mr. Cox used to take it easy. Frank was busy; I was not. I went to meet them, relieved the matron of her suitcase, and pulled out the chairs of my "centre." They sat down. One look convinced me that this was a family in which the father did the ordering. So it was to him that I handed the bill of fare.
"Well, young man," he said, hardly looking at it, "we want some sirloin steak. We want it tender. One rare, the rest well-done. Let's see. Coffee for eight; some sliced tomatoes, French-fried potatoes; and apple-pie for dessert."
"Pardon me, sir," I said; "we have some excellent

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Porterhouse. Three would do for the party. No more expensive than eight sirloins . . ."
"All right, sir," he interrupted, "use your judgment."
I went to the kitchen and down into the meat-storage room, where I selected three Porterhouse cuts, choosing one which was much thicker at one end than at the other. When I returned upstairs, I tossed the cook a fifty-cent piece and said, "Dress her up a bit, will you? All well done except the thick end of this one."
The cook never garnished a dish unless tipped to do so.
When I had everything ready, I pressed Frank into service in order to get the whole of my order to the front at one trip. I served one of the steaks to the older one of the young ladies, one to the high-school boy who felt quite elated at such honour and tried to avoid his father's grinning face; and the last one to the man.
"'This end is rare," I prompted.
"You managed that?" he said. "I was wondering."
They sat for an hour. Then the father called for the check. It amounted to less than six dollars.
"You take the money?" he asked.
"At the desk, please," I replied.
"Well," he said, "that was a good supper, well served. I hope, you don't decline tips, waiter?"
I smiled non-committally, and he held out a five-dollar bill. This party returned every night during their stay in Toronto.
Another five-dollar bill I came by in a different way.
One day, just after the noon-rush, Mr. Carlton brought a man up to one of my stalls. He winked at me, as if to say, "Special attention, please." This man was middle-aged, slender, fashionably dressed, and had the air of being tremendously busy.
As soon as he was seated, he began, "Now listen young man. I want a clean table-cloth, a meat-special, a piece of pie, a cup of tea. Everything piping hot and . . . quick! I'll be here every day at twenty to two sharp. At

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two I want to be back in my office. If you show me that you can do it, I'll make it worth your while,"
"Certainly, sir," I answered as casually as I could. "I shall have this seat ready for you after this."
To my surprise he took a bill from his fold, tore it into two pieces, handed me one, and said, "You'll get the other half on Saturday if I'm satisfied. If not, you won't."
I held out a menu. He waved it aside. "I never order," he laughed. "Use your judgment." And already he was deep in his paper.
The bill he had torn was a five-dollar bill.
One more case to illustrate.
One day a young man found his way to one of my stalls, a student of some kind, obviously, for he was carrying unwrapped books. I made it a point, of course, to serve every customer with the same precision, whether his looks proclaimed him to be of the tipping kind or not. My colleagues made a joke of that fact.
This young man was apparently so well pleased with the service received that he felt the desire to tip. Poverty was written all over him; if I had not feared to offend him, I should have forestalled any such attempt on his part. When he had finished his thirty-cent meal, he caught my eye, smiled, and raised his finger.
I went to his table.
He held a street-car ticket between two fingers stretched out. I believe it was worth three cents at the time. With an apologetic smile he asked, "Got any use for that?"
"Certainly," I replied.
He, too, came daily after that, and invariably I found a street-car ticket under the rim of his plate.
The attitude of most of the other waiters was one of outright derision at my courteous service for every customer -- till I demonstrated them to be wrong even from their own point of view.
One day a party of five whom I had often seen at other tables appeared at my stand. I motioned them to the

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centre table. There were three ladies and two young men. One of the young men seemed to be in charge.
"Waiter " he whispered to me, "couldn't you fix us up in a stall? My mother objects to the centre tables."
"Of course," I said. And I moved an additional chair across the aisle.
When I had taken the order and appeared in the kitchen, a shout of laughter greeted me.
"Got the tight-wad at last, Slim," somebody said, "eh? Did he spin his yarn about mother?"
"Son-of-a-gun!" shouted somebody else. "Wants a stall for five and kicks about everything; but nobody has ever seen the colour of his coin."
"Get a tip from him, Slim," I heard a third voice say, "and I'll say you're a waiter."
"Sure," I grinned. "I'll get a tip from him."
Everybody howled with amusement.
I gave the people just that amount of service which every customer received from me; when they left, I found a fifty-cent piece under the rim of the young man's plate.
That convinced even Frank of the superiority of my methods over his.
"You're a wizard, Phil," he exclaimed.
"No magic about it," I replied. "Just treat them as you would want to be treated, and they'll treat you as you wish them to."
Frank laughed. "You forget," he said, "we're not six feet three; nor do we have the manners of dukes and lords waiting on kings."
"'Well," I replied, "if I awed them into tipping me, as you seem to think, they would not come back, would they? All they want is the service they pay for. If they get it, they are willing to pay for it over again."
"I've tried it," Frank denied my plea. "I've tried it. Can't do it, Phil. Can't do it."
And there the case rested. I had to accept him as he was or to avoid him altogether; and for that I was not prepared.

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The whole episode of my waiterdom, would be of little importance -- for as far as my economic situation went, it was a mere interlude -- if it had not been for the fact that it demonstrated to myself my own adaptability. It gave me a fund of confidence which tided me over, during the moments of clearer vision, even through the years in the depths that were to follow. If I had not had this initial success, I might never have become a Canadian. I might have returned to Europe, gone into something "genteel" -- or I might have gone down into the underworld with which I was to come into contact anyway -- maybe becoming insane or indifferent in the end.
I have already given some reasons why I was disgusted with this particular scene of my activities. It remains for me to outline why I began to find it impossible to face the prospect of years to come in the same occupation. A certain Sunday morning became the turning point in the trend of my thoughts.
It was early in September, and Nature had begun to don those "golden hues that herald and beautify decay".
It had been raining overnight, quietly, softly, abundantly, I am tempted to say persuasively.
When I stepped out of the door in the morning, there was relaxation in the air; the strong and virile odour of the humus of the soil pervaded even the city streets. The sky was hazy. Royal purple lay all over the east. The earth seemed like a brood chamber, like a forcing house for exotic plants.
Instead of going into the city to get my breakfast, I turned into one of the parks and sat down on a bench.
For the first time in my life the commonplace in nature -- the "Near-at-hand" -- took hold of me and gripped my soul; so that I nearly burst into tears. A squirrel chattered at me; I longed to be able to love it. The dahlias stood with glistening drops still on their petals; the elms were strangely silent, as if they were hanging their boughs down, listening to the flow of their sap.
I felt immensely unhappy. I was young. The joy of

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mere living -- to feel the universe in myself when merely stretching my arms -- lassitude and contentment -- those things were a memory to me, a memory still near, still recent; but not reality. Somewhere in this great country there must be a place, so I felt, which I could fill better than anyone else. To work at what I could do the very best it could be done, that would be joy, that would be living. I felt as if I were chained underground, deep down, deep down, with an uncontrollable yearning to get to the light, to the life of the sun, to the real world.
New York was the place for me to go to, of course. Frank, so he said, knew the head-waiter at Sherry's who, according to him, was a wealthy veteran of the "profession". Yes, he could and would give me a card of introduction. He also was known to the employment agent at the Plaza. He had lived, he told me, in New York for more than a year. He knew a good house where I could secure a nice room for three dollars a week; it was kept, he said, by an exceptionally fine old lady who was sure to remember him and to do almost anything for a friend of his. He would give me a letter to her.
"And, Phil," he added; "you stop over at Buffalo, that goes without saying, and run up to Niagara. While you are there, you might do me the favour and drop in on my folks. I want my father to see that I am not herding it with the bums."
I smiled. "Of course, I'll see your folks if you wish me to," I assented.
"If you care," he went on tentatively. "I'm sure my father would gladly put you on the train for your trip; and you could keep your roll intact."
"I'm not exactly a pauper for the time being," I replied evasively.
The topic was not touched again.
My mind was made up. The strange thing about it was that there entered little of volition into my resolve. The thing did itself; I did not do it. Sometimes I realize to my amazement that the life I am dealing with has been

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my own. I honestly try to understand why I did this or that; and I do not succeed. I can only say, I did it. Something seemed to push and move me on.
May I suggest once more a connection that links these observations to some important problems of American sociology? I have often asked immigrants on this continent, Why did you do this? Why, for instance, did you settle just here? You would think that a man who pulls up his stakes in one part of the world will look around, weighing carefully all pros and cons, and will finally decide with shrewd vision that this or that spot is exactly where he wants to go. In the majority of cases, nothing could be further from the truth. Far and away the greater number go blindfolded into the unknown, just as I did. It is true that a few will plan and forecast; but even among these few I have found fewer still whose plans and forecasts have been realized. I asked John why he lived in Ruthensko, Manitoba; and he replied, because George had gone there; I asked George why he had picked this spot to settle down in, and he replied, because Mike had picked it before him. I came to Mike; and perhaps his story was the same, perhaps it was different. He had, so perhaps he said, tramped the country, working at odd jobs, at the chance of the job that offered. Meanwhile, in some innermost, hidden pocket, he had put away bill after bill of hard-earned and harder-saved money. And finally, when a railroad was being built into a certain section, he had found work on the construction gang and gone out into parts unknown. He had had a certain amount of money -- not half what he thought he should have had, considering the wages he had been getting and the frugality with which he had lived; for he had been mulcted and bled on various occasions because of his ignorance of conditions and values; nobody had ever helped him to avoid such pitfalls; complaints had merely elicited scorn and laughter at the "greenhorn". A great yearning had taken hold of him; a yearning to settle on his own soil, to be his own "boss"; he had settled down and gone through things that

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made even my hair stand on end; but at last he had won out in the face of adversity; and now it had seemed the greatest adversity to be alone in foreign parts. So he had written, or caused to be written, letters to friends and relatives; and they had come; a settlement had grown up. He had been drifting and drifting, ordered about and pushed, till he was weary and felt that to be despised by those who were "on" to the ways and the language of the country was no longer to be borne. Like a refractory sheep, he had lain down in his tracks and refused to move. That is the typical story of our rural, alien population, alien in thought, alien in language, through none of their fault. If the rural immigrant finds stumps on his land after he has bought or otherwise acquired it, well, it is stumps for him; if he finds, stones, it is stones, worse luck! And if he finds loam, it is great good fortune and none of the fault of the land-shark . But it is hit-or-miss; hit-or-miss everywhere. He has no choice except in theory. Yet, in the long, weary run of it even he builds Empire.
My own mind was made up. Did I make it up? I can hardly say. But I know that henceforth I thrust aside all objections which might turn up. I followed my star.
Then something happened which gave me a motive. I am emphatic about the order of things at this point. We hear a bell in our sleep; and with lightning quickness "it" -- whatever it may be that works in our nerve-cells constructs a whole story leading up to that peal of the bell, motivating, explaining it "ex-post-facto", as if we had been dreaming that story for a long while already, and as if the bell had rung at exactly the right moment; so that we marvel at the wonderful connection between the dream and reality and build up a causal nexus, starting, at the wrong end. There was not even coincidence. Much of our explanation of psychological phenomena, much of our motivation in ordinary life is of just that order. We do a thing; then we hit on a reason that may explain why we might have done it; at, last we believe quite honestly that we had very good reasons indeed for doing

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what we have done. Thus we build up the myth of our own free will.
In my own case, however, there never was any illusion about the sequence of resolution and motive. It struck me at the time that in retrospection the order of things might become reversed; the very thought of this possibility prevented it from becoming a fact. But it suited my purposes well to give the ex-post-facto motivation as a very plausible explanation of my actions to others.
What happened was this. A day or two after my conversation with Frank -- the conversation about New York which decided the issue -- the head-waiter, got into a dispute with a patron of the restaurant. Meg, his wife, was the waitress. The customer had told her that he had to catch a train and asked her to hurry his order along. Two or three times he had reminded her of his hurry; without eliciting any response from her. Then, Mr. Cox passing his table, he stopped him, not knowing, of course, about his connection with the waitress. He simply directed him to cancel his order and got up. Now it was considered a very bad break on the part of a waiter to let a customer get away without having been served. Mr. Cox himself had been rather free with rebukes when such a thing had happened once or twice at other stands. He did an exceedingly injudicious thing for which there was only this excuse that just then Meg appeared through the swinging door, with the tray on her shoulder.
"We cannot cancel," Mr. Cox replied. "Your order is coming, sir."
"I don't want the order any longer; I have to catch my train," the customer flared back and reached for his hat.
Mr. Cox went white. With lightning quickness he snatched Meg's checkbook up, totalled the amount, and held out the customer's check. "Whether you want the order or not," he said, "you will pay your check."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," replied the customer and made as if to leave.

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Mr. Cox, losing his self-control, tried to bar his way and threatened, "You will not leave the place till you have paid your check; I shall call the police."
This moment Mr. Carlton, who was never far away when there was the slightest commotion, came quickly and quietly along the aisle.
"What's wrong?" he asked curtly.
Cox shrugged his shoulders. "Man refuses to pay."
"Any complaint, sir?" Mr. Carlton turned to the customer.
The stranger explained. "I've been waiting for twenty-five minutes. I have to catch a train and told the waitress so. It is my impression that she delayed intentionally."
"When does your train leave?" Mr. Carlton looked at his watch.
The customer gave the time.
"John," Mr. Carlton flashed around, addressing the new helper on the upper floor, "get a taxicab; quick." And turning to the customer, he went on. "We have to apologize, sir. The house will see to it that you catch your train. I'm sorry you missed your dinner."
"Well, now . . ." the customer began deprecatingly.
"Not at all," Mr. Carlton interrupted. "We cannot let you suffer through the fault of one of our employees."
And together they passed along the aisle.
Mr. Cox was raving. "Look here," he fumed when Mr. Carlton returned, "you have no business to butt in like that . . ."
"Cox," said Mr. Carlton very quietly, but with finality in his tone, "don't you know that the customer is always right?"
"Hell," Cox broke out, "you're just picking on me."
"Listen, Cox," Mr. Carlton cut in like steel. "Now I've got to discharge you, of course. Take it as a lesson and learn from it, anyway."
With that he wheeled about and went into his office.
Mr. Cox was scarlet. Meg stood white. For a moment
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he looked as if he were going to throw himself after the manager. Then he laughed contemptuously, went, without a glance at his wife, down the steps and into the dressing-room, and emerged shortly afterwards in business suit and hat, satchel in hand, to leave the restaurant for ever.
It was Frank who intimated the sequel to me. He chuckled when, half an hour later, I went over to where he was standing.
"Good for you, Phil," he greeted me.
"For me?" I asked.
"Sure," he laughed. "You're picked as the new captain."
"Nonsense," I said. "How could you know?"
"Heard Carlton talk over the phone to Johnson."
I stood for a moment, looking ahead into vacancy. My New York plans seemed to sink, to sink.
But nobody spoke to me about it that day; nor the next; and on the third morning a sleek-looking, powerfully-built, fat young Jew appeared as head-waiter on the scene.
"You see," I said to Frank as soon as I had a chance to speak to him without a witness.
"Too bad," he said; "underhanded game."
"'What do you mean?"
"Well," he explained "the thing got out, you know; and the skunks went to Carlton and said they'd quit in a body if a greenhorn like you was promoted over their heads. They wanted an outsider."
I pondered that.
"It's hard, you know," Frank went on, "to get waiters; it's easy enough to get a captain. Lots of waiters to pick from. This man they got from the Prince Edward. Easy job -- nothing needed but appearance."
The new head-waiter who gave his name as George was instantly disliked by everybody except Frank, who somehow laughed and joked him into friendship. The cause of this general dislike was that he assumed his duty

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of directing customers to their seats with autocratic indifference to preexisting associations. And since I depended more than anybody else on my regular customers, I was the first to come to an open clash.
It was in the afternoon, when that invalid and his daughter appeared who had been my first customers. George took the lead and tried to steer them to the back of the room. But I relieved him of his charge by simply reaching for the old gentleman's hat and smiling at the young lady.
George waited for me at the kitchen-door.
"Look here, young fElla," he said sharply, "none of that while I am around."
I shrugged my shoulders. "They are my regular customers."
"Never mind about regular customers," he flared back. "I'm going to attend to that. You take what I give you, or I'll fire you."
"You might fire yourself," I replied. "But as it happens, it suits me. I give notice. I shall leave a week from Saturday."
With that I went through the door to fetch my tray.
Mr. Carlton called me into his office that night.
"I hear you've given notice, Branden." he said. "What's wrong?"
"Incompatibility of character, I suppose," I said "But that isn't all. I do not like to stay where the rumour of my being promoted precipitates a revolution."
Mr. Carlton laughed. "Oh, as far as that goes. . . . But I suppose, your mind is made up."
"I'm afraid it is, sir," I replied
That answer settled the matter.
Most people are familiar with the feeling that dominates a person who is about to take a holiday. You see your immediate and maybe disagreeable duties as if they stood at a distance; you are wrapped in your expectations and visions and smile at the difficulties of the hour. You look after the business in hand with a certain impatience

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and even absent-mindedness, forgetting that you will have to come back to it after a while. The holiday stretches ahead -- interminably, it seems.
That was my state of mind, except for the fact that I did not expect to come back.
And here is a curious thing.
I had not, so far, suffered from the consciousness of doing menial work. On that score, Frank had been more sensitive than I. I was disgusted with the atmosphere of this particular place, with the dressing-rooms, the kitchen, the small-talk current among the waiters. All these things Frank had accepted philosophically; but he chafed at menial service. The work itself had to be done to keep the wheels of the world turning, and I had not at all objected to doing my share of it. Frank, who had really not changed from one environment to another -- I mean, as far as the customers were concerned -- objected to being forced to fill orders -- obey the orders, as he put it -- of men whom he otherwise would have freely associated with on a footing of equality. I, who had never before considered myself as on a level -- intellectually and socially -- with these people, had not considered myself debased by listening or ministering to their wants, although I should not have picked the companions of my leisure from their ranks. All which suggests strange reflections on the workings of democracy.
This attitude -- which is essentially my attitude to-day -- now underwent a subtle change. Looking back over a gulf of three decades at myself as I was at the time, I see the difference very clearly, but find it hard to define it in so many words.
It was as if I had begun to look at my relations to the customers with a fine and very superior sense of humour. Not for a moment did I abate in the service I rendered. That is proved by the fact that this last week yielded me the abnormally high total of nearly seventy dollars in tips. But I felt like somebody who has made a speciality of the study of certain processes -- in this case, how, gracefully

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and with the most bountiful yield in pleasure, to satisfy your bodily needs -- and who condescends to give a demonstration of his art. This deceived me about a deeper feeling; it was an attitude assumed in self-defence. For, from the moment when I had put a definite end to my stay at this particular place, I looked at the whole business with distaste. It remained bearable only when viewed as a lark, as something which you might do in disguise or for a very short time; but to persist in which would be folly or worse.
During the afternoon before my last day Mr. Johnson, the proprietor, sat down at one of my tables.
"Have a seat," he said to me. "Sorry you are going to leave us," he went on, in a business-like way, when I had complied. "What are your plans?"
"I am going to New York," I answered. "I have no definite plans."
"You do not wish to continue in your present line?"
"For a while, maybe," I answered, "hardly for long."
"Well I suppose you know your mind," he suggested, and I tried to look as if I did.
"I understand you have been in this country only a few weeks. You have no doubt learned something useful. I can only repeat we are sorry to lose you. It is your type which we want. Should you ever return to this city and need it, we shall be glad to take you on again."
"Thanks," I said, not very heartily.
"I hope you won't need it. Wish you the best of success." With that he rose and offered his hand.
I felt convinced that he had been prepared to give me a glimpse at possibilities, at probable promotions; but I had, by the aloofness of my manner, prevented him from doing so. That he had come with some definite purpose, nobody in the whole dining-room doubted. It was too great a condescension on his part to sit down with one of his waiters.
I felt it a duty to call on Ella before she left on Saturday night.

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She giggled with embarrassment when I invited her to sit with me. "So you're leaving, Slim?" she said with a wistful smile that has not faded from my memory.
"Day after to-morrow morning," I said.
A silence fell.
Her face was flushed, her voice playing up a child-like petulancy. "Too bad; none of the nice people stay."
"You are staying," I fenced.
"That's just it," she complained.
"And Frank," I added.
"Oh yes," she smiled reluctantly. "Frank's all right. I thought so, anyway, till you came. Oh, Slim, just think, I've been here now for nearly three years, and I'm over twenty . . ."
I did not like that tack. I came back to my previous point. "What's Frank done to you?"
"Nothing," she pouted. "only you can't everlastingly go on fooling. No matter what I say or do, Frank will turn it into a joke and get away from under. I want to be able, once in a while, to talk seriously."
"Ella," I said, "why don't you look out for a husband?"
"Look out for one?" she asked; and there was in her voice a strange mixture of impatience and dreaminess. "As if I hadn't been looking out all along! Who'd want me? Bust-measure forty-four, height six feet two -- there's too much of me. Men are cowards. They're afraid I'll crush them." And, in spite of the jeering tone, tears were near the surface.
I laughed. "Don't take it that way," I said. "Somebody will come along. Somebody will see that he can't get too much of a good thing. Some man at the other extreme."
"Some Roddy?" she giggled.
"There are small men who are nice and good and who like to be mothered. Don't look for the big and strong, Ella. They want something they can gather up in their arms."

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"Who tells you I don't want to be gathered up in somebody's arms?" she pouted.
"It isn't in nature, Ella," I said with a smile. "You take my advice. Look for the other extreme."
Soon after we shook hands and took leave.
Somehow this conversation, more than anything else, seemed to put a period behind the epoch in my life which this parting from Toronto marked. Here was a girl, meant to be wife and mother, a good girl, a clean girl, suffering from the handicap of too much weight and missing her destiny through no fault of hers. I had taken more of an interest in her than I betrayed; and just because it was the onlooker's interest only and I was going to leave her behind so that she would pass out of my life completely and for ever, there was a certain melancholy about our good-by which I felt keenly.
It was quite different with Frank; I did not expect him to disappear from my horizons. We had agreed to write to each other, to keep in touch, and, if possible, to maintain a mutual helpfulness. On Sunday morning he brought me a number of letters; one of which I was to deliver to his father or his mother at Buffalo; the rest, half a dozen of them, containing cards of introduction to various people in New York. In the afternoon we went to some park outside the city, roaming about and planning for the future. Our parting seemed to lack that air of finality which had characterized my last conversation with Ella. I felt it more as the beginning of my holiday.
I had five hundred dollars in my hat-box when I boarded the train for Buffalo on Monday morning. All customs and immigration formalities had been attended to at Toronto.
I could not help comparing myself with the young man, who, two months ago, had arrived at the pier of Montreal. "All things flow." I was the same and not the same. I had gone through what, for me, was a tremendous experience; it had changed my attitude towards life. Outwardly I felt very safe, very sure of myself.

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If any one had accosted me and asked whether I was a newcomer to the country, I should not have answered so openly -- maybe not so truthfully as I had answered Mr. Bennett. Without telling a lie, I might have prevaricated, avoiding the stranger's eye. To a certain extent the quiet, self-possessed bearing of this young man was not altogether histrionic. I was an experienced traveller: for the first time in my life I had money in my pocket which was really mine.
As I see it now, I was, of course, not essentially changed; but I had learned something.
I believe I am right in assuming that behind and beyond American commercialism and industrialism there lies a vast world untouched by either. Even part of commercial America is pervaded with the spirit of that other half which, in spite of its greater extent, is less obvious. By slow degrees I have come to accept two character-traits as distinctively American, marking the collective character of the New World off from the collective character of Europe or any other civilization-unit. One of them is a lack of selfishness which rests really on the consciousness of size; it is a willingness to sacrifice, to help along, to let live, to give out of a superabundance available, and to do a thing because it should be done, not because it furthers the doer's interests, but because it is, after all, only fair and right to do it. The other is a tendency of non-interference, an inclination to take things and men as they are -- the ability to get around things, to make shift, to accept things as realities, to make the best of them without grumbling -- in other words, the power to assimilate no matter what, even graft. Either of these two traits may become eclipsed now and then; for it is not always a nation's highest which becomes audible; but never yet have I for long listened in vain when I was anxiously waiting for one or the other of these two traits -- helpfulness and toleration -- to assert itself and to clear up what for the moment seemed hopelessly muddled.
At that time, I still saw the surface only, and the

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surface indications point rather in the opposite direction. To the casual observer America must indeed seem a jumble of unassimilated units; it seems so to many Americans. As for the nation's collective life, it may well appear as a wild scramble of selfishness to him who cannot see the waters below for the ruffled waters above; he judges the quiet deep by the fleeting breakers which loom so high.
If I had known more about the real America, I should never have gone to New York. Bennett would have advised against it. That, I am afraid, is exactly why I did not look him up before leaving Toronto. I preferred to listen to Frank, to his stories of frantic effort and dazzling success. It had never occurred to me to ask him, why he did not go to New York himself.
Looked at from the outside, America's population, whether in Canada or in the United States, seemed much less stable than that of Europe. My first impression, gained under the circumstances which I have outlined, was that of a floating tide, changing quickly, unthinkingly, continually -- like the winds which blow over the continent. But it is the surface only to which I belonged and to which I still was to belong for years to come. Underneath this frantic motion, this ever-changing surface-agitation, I have, in the course of years, learned to discern an evergrowing, solid foundation which is firm as the rocks, moving only in a quiet, steady, unvarying motion -- a motion headed towards clearer insight and firmer resolve to assert itself -- a motion as irresistible as that of the Earth herself, and as continued and unobtrusive. The trouble is that in our cities we stand in the turmoil of the day; nearly all that finds utterance through the voice belongs to this turmoil. In order to catch the real trend of American thought you have to get your ear down to the soil to listen. Then you will hear the sanity, the good sense, and the good-will which are truly American. While you stand upright in the clash of the surface, your ear in filled with the clamour and clangour, the brassy din of fleeting noises which drown the quiet whisper of destiny. The

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future must redeem the day. And lucky we, since it is coming, coming.
My short stay at Buffalo was the most fleeting episode. I called at the house of Frank's parents and realized with a shock how little the fact that I introduced myself as Frank's friend prepared a welcome for me.
The mother, a stout middle-aged lady, received me in the parlour, read the letter which I brought, asked a few questions, distantly almost, as if she took no interest in her son, sighed a good deal, looked a good deal at me, over the rim of her glasses, not without suspicion, hoped Frank would come to his senses, and suggested to my perceptions that the interview was a painful one and had better come to an end.
I extricated myself and, after roaming the city for a while and having looked down from the "Front" on lake and river, took a car to the "Falls."
There I saw what a year or two ago I might have gone across the face of the earth to see. And I have to confess that it made no impression on me at all. I am afraid that in much of our admiration for the great sights there is a good deal of sham. To catch the real significance of any aspect of Nature one thing above all is needed -- the receptive mood in ourselves. To create it, I found, so many things are necessary, so many coincidences of preparation, such delicate attunements of eye and ear to the accidents of light and sound, that hardly ever does the real experience of the beauty of any one thing come to us more than once in a lifetime. A good many times have I been out on sight seeing trips; sometimes I did not bring home a single thing of value; sometimes, what made such a trip an abiding possession, was some little trifle which had nothing to do with the seven wonders that I went out to see -- some light-reflexes on the mobile ripples of a brook, maybe; or the play of the shadows of some leaves on the ground. But once in a great while, very rarely, in one of those supreme and never-to-be-forgotten moments which are worth patiently waiting for, worth wooing, one of the

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really great things of our Earth will speak to us because our own condition is just right for just what we see or hear -- and then it stands revealed; when we go home, we are different men and women; our life, our very being is changed because we have stood face to face with the Divine.
The falls might have revealed themselves to me, had I been able to linger with a free and unencumbered mind. As it was, they were just so much water falling over rocks. The trip, foolishly undertaken, put me at odds with myself and the world. In reality it probably was the impression made upon me by my reception at the house of Frank's parents which so strangely unsettled me. I was preoccupied, angry, full of half-realized doubts; and the sight which I beheld was very nearly an intrusion upon my privacy.
My holiday started thus in the most inauspicious manner. I felt lonesome, deserted. I felt inclined to find fault with Frank for having sent me on such an errand. My whole surroundings, the sight-seers, who were indifferent only, seemed hostile. I thought of that last but one Sunday at Toronto. I had felt as if I were chained underground, full of an overpowering yearning to get back to the surface, the life of real men, the light. Now I was very near to a desire to bury myself, to hide away from the view of all those who had their definite place in the work of the world.
For the first time the real problem which confronted me loomed high. It had flashed up once or twice before, but dimly only, not as the all-important thing as which I saw it now. It is a curious fact that its recognition did not deflect the course of my life as yet. If I had seen things then as I was to see them two years later, I should have spared myself untold days and nights of misery. But to open my eyes, that nightmare was needed which for me is named by the name New York. At that time I saw the problem only, not as yet a way to solve it. Its solution looked like a goal that stood at the end of a road

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which I had to go in order to get there. No road which I could see was labelled Salvation.
The problem which loomed up was this: to find -- not my "level" any longer in this civilization of an order foreign to me -- but to find, in this labyrinth of roads, and Fields, rocks and soils, that spot of humus where I could take root in order that I might grow. I had so far accepted myself, my innermost I, as something given, something stable, enduring, as something that was. This afternoon at Niagara Falls which has so strongly persisted in my memory -- probably, because it comprised some of the most unhappy hours in my life -- I suddenly saw myself as a mere germ, as a seed that wanted to be planted. I realized that I was nothing finished; that there were still possibilities of growth in me. But, unless I found the soil in which I could grow, I was bound to perish -- no matter what my outward success might be. Like a great anguish a fear crept over me. I might achieve what I had set out to achieve -- economic success. But that success seemed strangely inadequate now, might it be ever so great. What good could it do me if I won all the riches on earth but lost my -- growth?
I thought of my father and of his life, and I shuddered. Was I to follow his path, but with the direction reversed? Had I started life where he left it, and was I now going for ever after to live in "ill-fitting clothes"? I had gone too far to turn back. Besides, turn back to what? To a life of mediocrity under the eye of social contempt? If mediocrity it was to be, why not spare myself the contempt? I was surrounded by bitter waters, and I had to swim. I was at the mercy of winds and waves.
Bitterly I felt the blindness of him who gropes his way in a foreign world. Bitterly I felt the cruelty of those who live their easy lives in well-marked tracks, unconscious of the suffering that is his who is cast away among them.
Still, when I saw the real problem at last, it never occurred to me -- as it hardly ever occurs to the immigrant -- that the search for that bit of soil which might fill my

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needs might not be a geographical search at all. The thought never came to me that somewhere in this great city, in any city, any town, any village, there might be a man to whom I could talk, with whom I could discuss the problem just as it loomed before me, and who might point out its quite obvious and unmistakable solution. Economic success seemed a very small thing to me that afternoon and, in sane moments, ever after. Economic success is a very relative thing in any case; it hardly matters. What would have meant economic success to me might have seemed abject poverty to some, wealth incarnate to others. But one thing we all desire and long for; unless we find it, we perish spiritually and mentally -- unless we find a way of doing it, for it is a doing rather than a having. And to express that one thing, I might borrow a word from among the words of Jews: "to live in abundance."
Still, of course, the economic problem persisted. Even after I did what I could to shake it off entirely, this question of the immediate sustenance still was to arise, every now and then, and to obscure the real problem as it had dawned upon me when I was at odds with myself because a middle-aged lady did not receive me as I thought I should have been received.

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