Then I dropped in casually upon one of my friends.
“Well,” I said, “I’m off to New England to spend a month naked.”
“Nantucket,” he said, “or Newport?”
“No,” I answered, speaking as lightly as I could. “I’m going into the woods and stay there naked for a month.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I see. Well, goodbye, old chap—see you when you get back.”
After that I called upon two or three other men to say a brief word of farewell. I could not help feeling slightly nettled, I must confess, at the very casual way in which they seemed to take my announcement. “Oh, yes,” they said, “naked in the woods, eh? Well, ta-ta till you get back.”
Here was a man about to risk his life—for there was no denying the fact—in a great sociological experiment, yet they received the announcement with absolute unconcern. It offered one more assurance, had I needed it, of the degenerate state of the civilization upon which I was turning my back.
On my way to the train I happened to run into a newspaper reporter with whom I have some acquaintance.
“I’m just off,” I said, “to New England to spend a month naked—at least naked all but
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