ABSTRACT
It was at the close of the year 1902 that I decided to give up my comfortable clerkship in the big fire-insurance general offices of Trezevant & Cochran in Dallas and become—an advertising man. The insurance job paid only fifty per month, but on this stipend I was able to secure excellent room and board and to wear Edwin Clapp shoes, Manhattan shirts, Knox hats and the like, and to smoke ten cent cigars and take in all the shows which came to town. Doubtless one reason the money went so far was that, at twenty, I had already had a disappointing experience with love and, as a result, was off the gals. But my work was dull. I sought thrills—and a career.
