One night in April or May of 1894, I ran into Crane on Broadway and we started over to the Everett House together, I'd been at a theater with Saltus and was in evening dress. In the Square a kid came up and begged from us. I was drunk enough to give him a quarter. He followed along and I saw he was really soliciting. Crane was damned innocent about everything but women and didn't see what the boy's game was. We got to the Everett House and we could see that the kid was painted. He was very handsome—looked like a Rossetti angel—big violet eyes—probably full of belladonna. He took the kid in and fed him supper. Got him to talk. The kid had syphilis, of course—most of that type do—and wanted money to have himself treated. Crane rang up Irving Bacheller and borrowed fifty dollars.
He pumped a mass of details out of the boy whose name was something like Coolan and began a novel about a boy prostitute. I made him read ''A Rebours'' which he didn't like very much. Thought it stilted. This novel began with a scene in a railroad station. Probably the best passage of prose that Crane ever wrote. Boy from the country running off to see New York. He read the thing to Garland who was horrified and begged him to stop. I don't know that he ever finished the book. He was going to call it ''Flowers of Asphalt''.〔Quoted in Delany, pp. 193—94〕