Like the reporter who had watched the Marching Men in the field by the
factory wall John Van Moore was a dapper young man with a moustache.
In his leisure hours he played a clarinet. "It gives a man something
to cling to," he explained to his friends. "One sees life going past
and feels that he is not a mere drifting log in the stream of things.
Although as a musician I amount to nothing, it at least makes me
dream."
Among the men in the advertising office where he worked Van Moore was
known as something of a fool, redeemed by his ability to string words
together. He wore a heavy black braided watch chain and carried a cane
and he had a wife who after marriage had studied medicine and with
whom he did not live. Sometimes on a Saturday evening the two met at
some restaurant and sat for hours drinking and laughing. When the wife
had gone to her own place the advertising man continued the fun, going
from saloon to saloon and making long speeches setting forth his
philosophy of life. "I am an individualist," he declared, strutting up
and down and swinging the cane about. "I am a dabbler, an experimenter
if you will. Before I die it is my dream that I will discover a new
quality in existence."
For the bicycle company the advertising man was to write a booklet
telling in romantic and readable form the history of the company.
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