In Boston I had ditched everything but the clothes I wore ... and my
suit was wrecked with hard usage.

"Get work at anything," advised my Uncle Jim, "and save up till you can
rig yourself out new. You'll never accomplish anything looking the way
you do. Your editor at the _Independent_ will not be impressed and think
it romantic, if you go to see him the way you are ... ragged poets are
out of date."

* * * * *

At "Perfection City" I had made the acquaintance of a boy, whom,
curiously enough, I have left out of that part of the narrative that has
to deal with the Nature Colony. He was a millionaire's son: his father,
a friend of Barton's, had sent him out to "Perfection City" with a
tutor. His name was Milton Saunders. He was a fine, generous lad, but
open as the weather to every influence ... especially to any which was
not for his good.

One morning I saw him actually remove his own shoes and give them to a
passing tramp who needed them worse than he.

"That's nothing, dad's money will be sufficient to buy me a new pair,"
he explained, going back to his tent, in his bare feet, his socks in his
hand--to put on his sneakers while he hastened to the shoe store in
Andersonville.

* * * * *

Milton had urged me to be sure to come and see him if I chanced to be in