His present occupation was that of an instalment collector for a furniture company, which set him free, as a rule, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

He was trying, in a mooning way, to identify himself with the Chicago newspaper world, and was a discovery of Gardner Knowles.
Stephanie had seen him about the rooms of the Garrick Players.

She had looked at his longish face with its aureole of soft, crinkly hair, his fine wide mouth, deep-set eyes, and good nose, and had been touched by an atmosphere of wistfulness, or, let us say, life-hunger.

Gardner Knowles brought a poem of his once, which he had borrowed from him, and read it to the company, Stephanie, Ethel Tuckerman, Lane Cross, and Irma Ottley assembled.
"Listen to this," Knowles had suddenly exclaimed, taking it out of his pocket.
It concerned a garden of the moon with the fragrance of pale blossoms, a mystic pool, some ancient figures of joy, a quavered Lucidian tune.
"With eerie flute and rhythmic thrum Of muted strings and beaten drum." Stephanie Platow had sat silent, caught by a quality that was akin to her own.

She asked to see it, and read it in silence.
"I think it's charming," she said.
Thereafter she hovered in the vicinity of Forbes Gurney.