MAINLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 15

Royce, a man little older than myself, an expert in
dialectics, but with enough of the devil in his
otherwise saintly composition to make him an
interesting, amusing and profitable companion.
The Easter vacation coming round, he and I
agreed that the occasion was timely for getting
the taste of philosophy out of our mouths or, as he
put it, for suspending our attempts " to fix a bit
of salt on the tail of the Absolute," which both of
us for some months past had been trying to do
with indifferent success, at least on my part. To
effect this laudable diversion he proposed that we
should go off together for a lark in New York.
The main feature of the " lark " as outlined by
him was that we should act for the time being as
though ,we were millionaires, which we were very
far from being, treating ourselves to all the
luxuries our hearts might desire and sticking it
out as long as the funds would allow. The motive
for the adventure was, of course, " to extend the
range of our experience," a motive, I observe, by
which philosophers, especially young ones, often
excuse their transactions with the powers of dark-
ness. On counting up the cash at my disposal I
foresaw that a lark of this kind would necessarily
be of brief duration and would probably be
followed by general bankruptcy; but I reflected
that whatever might happen to my economic
fortunes, my moral interests would be safe in
company wfth so eminent a philosopher, as indeed
they turned out to be.