The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-16
CHAPTER l..
queries

| Make Nc Effort to Defend Myself. ~ AM quite sure it was my Uncle
 Rilas who said that I was fool. N4 If memory serves me well he re 7 Heved himself of that conviction in the presence of my mother-whose brother he was-at a time when I was least competent to acknowledge his wisdom and most arrogant in assert ing nay own. I was a freshman in college. a factor condition perhaps which should serve as an excuse for both of us. I possessed another uncle, incidentally, and while I am now con sVinced that he must have felt as UncIe Ri1as did about it, he was one of those who suffer in silence. x
 I assume, therefore, that it was Uncle Rilas who orally convicted me, an as sumption. Justified to some extent by putting two and two together, after the poor old gentleman was laid away for his long sleep. He had been very emphatic in his belief that a fool and his money are soon pafted. Up to the time Of his death I had been in no way, qualified to dispute this ancient theory In theory no doubt, I was the kind of fool he referred to, but in practice I was quite an untried novice. It is very hard for even fool to part with something he hasn't got. Not until Uncle Rilas died and left me all of his money was I able to demon strate that dead men and fools part with it.
 In any event Uncle Rilas did not leave me his money until my freshmen days were far behind me, wherein lies the solace that he may have out grown an opinion while I was going through the same process. At twenty three I confessed that all freshmen were insufferable and immediately aft erward took my degree and went out into the world to convince it that sen iors are by no means ado1escent
 My uncIe's original estimate of me as a freshman, of course-Was uttered when I at the age of eighteen picked out my walk in life, so to speak. After considering everything I decided to be a literary mana novelist or play wright. hadn't much of a choice be- tween the two, or perhaps Journalist. Being q journalist. of course, was pre- 1iminary, a sort of makeshift. At any rate I was going to be writer. My Uncle Rilas. q hard headed customer, who had read Scott as a boy and the Wall Street News as man without being misled by either, was scornful. He said that would outgrow it; there was some consolation in that. He even. admitted that when he was seventeen. he wanted to be an actor There you are! said he.
 l argued that noVelists make great deal of money and playwrights, too, for that matter. He said in reply that an ordinarily vigorous washerwoman could make more money than the aver age novelist, and she always had a stocking without a hole to keep it in, which was more to the point.
 Now that I come to think of it, it. was Uncle Rilas who oracularly pre- judged me and not Uncle John, who was by way of being sort of literary chap himself and therefore 1amentably unqualified to guide me in any course whatsoever, especially as he had all he could do to keep his own wolf at bay without encoura ging mine and who be- sides teaching good English loved 1t wisely and too well.
 My mother felt in her heart that I ought to be doctor or preacher, but she wasn't mean. She was positive I could succeed as a writer if I set my mind to it. She was also sure that could be president of the United States or perhaps even a bishop. We were EpiscopalianS.
 When was twenty-seven my first short story appeared in a magazine of considerable weight, due to it's adver- tising pages, but my Uncle Rilas didn't 1eA6 it until had convinced him that