FALLING in love with Paris at first sight--a coup de feu, it was--
in no way dimmed the energy and the care with which on the day
of my arrival I began to put into operation the cautious and
laborious Plan for self-support I had brought along. It rather
intensified it. As I must begin at the bottom to build up contacts
with strangers on the other side of the ocean, and as there was
but $150 in my pocket, there was no time to waste.

In the ten years I had been trying to support myself I had
learned that the art of spending money is quite as important in
a sound financial program as the art of earning it. I had been
going on the theory, as I still am--practice is another story--
that what I earned must cover my expenses and leave a surplus
for emergencies and expansion. I had applied my principles to
my small salary on The Chautauquan--never over $100 a month
--well enough to get myself to Paris and have this little reserve
to care for myself while I was proving or disproving that I could
convince a few American editors whom I had never seen that my
goods were worth buying.

The first step, obviously, in carrying out my program was
cheap living. Luckily for me, two of my associates on The Chau-
tauquan, excited by my undertaking, had decided to join me.
One, Josephine Henderson, was a friend of Titusville days and
like myself a graduate of Allegheny College. Jo, as we called her,
was a handsome woman with a humorous look on life--healthy
for me. I have never had a friend who judged my balloons more
shrewdly or pricked them so painlessly. With us was a beautiful
girl, Mary Henry, the daughter of one of the militant W.C.T.U.
workers of that day, a neighbor and a friend as well as a co-

-89-