I was at one time employed in a government office. Every day from ten
o'clock until four I became a voluntary prisoner in a depressing office,
adorned with yellow pasteboard boxes, and filled with the musty odor of
old papers. There I lunched on Italian cheese and apples which I roasted
at the grate. I read the morning papers, even to the advertisements; I
rhymed verses, and I attended to the affairs of state to the extent of
drawing at the end of each month a salary which barely kept me from
starving.