participants in the drama are unnamed, except by a descriptive phrase. One, referred to only as the traveler for the hat firm in Ogallala, Neb., begins to chat up the youthful stranger with the blonde and innocent hair. They are observed by a third man, who is leaning against the bar, ruffling his whiskers thoughtfully. The traveling salesman suggests to the blond youth that they share a glass of mineral water and then go to a concert together. Before the youth can respond, the bearded man intervenes, challenging the salesman to a game of dice. The challenge is abrupt and unprovoked, and it seems almost as if the two men are gambling for the right to carry off the young man. After he loses fifty dollars to the salesman, the man with the ruffled beard beats a hasty retreat. Having vanquished his rival, the traveling salesman makes his move, offering to split his winningsa substantial sum with the youthful stranger he has just met. The young man declines to accept the money. The salesman insists. You take half and Ill take half, and well go blow it. Youre as welcome as sunrise, my dear fellow. Take it alongits nothing. What are youkickin about? No, said the youthful stranger with the blonde and innocent hair, to the traveler for the hat firm in Ogallala, Neb., Iguess Ill stroll back up-town. I want to write a letter to my mother. Crane, who gained a reputation as a superbly original prose writer, an author who employs startlingly odd images and unexpected phrases, concludes his report on the bathhouses of Hot Springs with perhaps the most peculiar sentence he ever wrote: In the back room of the saloon, the man with the ruffled beard was silently picking hieroglyphics out of his whiskers. Whatever can that mean? What coded signals had he been sending to the youth that had been intercepted and repulsed by the traveling salesman? What odd ciphers had blown back in the thwarted mans face? The narrator never says so, but it is likely that from his place at the end of the bar, Crane sensed he had witnessed one of the arcane rituals of a shadowy clan. He intuited that unwanted propositions had been madeand rejectedin a cryptic language of words and glances that he himself was unable to decipher with any degree of certainty. At their dinner at the New York hotel, the Painted Angel of Union Square may have shared many secrets about the hermetic world of homosexuals, but he had evidently failed to pass along the necessary Rosetta Stone. We might have a clearer understanding of Stephen Cranes meaning if the original manuscript for Seen at Hot Springs had survivedthe article as Crane wrote it. The version published by the Bacheller syndicate begins with that odd observation (above) ending with the words: he can conclude that he is a natural phenomenon and doomed to the curiosity of all peoples. Surely unnatural would make more sense here, and if unnatural is what Crane actually wrote in the column he submitted to the newspaper, perhaps that censored un is all the Rosetta Stone we need to understand what he means. REFERENCES Auster, Paul. Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane.Henry Holt, 2021. Crane, Stephen. Crane: Prose and Poetry. Library of America, 1984. Wertheim, Stanley and Paul Sorrentino. The Crane Log: A Documentary Life of Stephen Crane, 1871-1900. G. K. Hall, 1995. 16 The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