a rising American sculptor. This young man had a commission for an
allegorical figure of Truth (draped, of course) for his State Capitol,
and he needed help. Ewart had returned with his hair cut en brosse and
with his costume completely translated into French. He wore, I remember,
a bicycling suit of purplish-brown, baggy beyond ageing--the only
creditable thing about it was that it had evidently not been made for
him--a voluminous black tie, a decadent soft felt hat and several French
expletives of a sinister description. "Silly clothes, aren't they?" he
said at the sight of my startled eye. "I don't know why I got'm. They
seemed all right over there."

He had come down to our Raggett Street place to discuss a benevolent
project of mine for a poster by him, and he scattered remarkable
discourse over the heads (I hope it was over the heads) of our bottlers.

"What I like about it all, Ponderevo, is its poetry.... That's where
we get the pull of the animals. No animal would ever run a factory
like this. Think!... One remembers the Beaver, of course. He might very
possibly bottle things, but would he stick a label round 'em and sell
'em? The Beaver is a dreamy fool, I'll admit, him and his dams, but
after all there's a sort of protection about 'em, a kind of muddy
practicality! They prevent things getting at him. And it's not your
poetry only. It's the poetry of the customer too. Poet answering to
poet--soul to soul. Health, Strength and Beauty--in a bottle--the magic
philtre! Like a fairy tale....

"Think of the people to whom your bottles of footle go! (I'm calling it
footle, Ponderevo, out of praise," he said in parenthesis.)

"Think of the little clerks and jaded women and overworked people.