You will find a very natural
explanation of your mistake. Perhaps the passages Mr. Pollard marked
were the ones he did NOT intend to read to me, or perhaps you took the
wrong set of papers; some perfectly natural explanation I am sure."
That night at dinner, when I was still smarting under the sense of
injustice born of my morning's experience, J. P. gave me an opening
which I could not allow to pass unused.
Turning to me during a pause in the conversation, he asked:
"And what have YOU been doing this afternoon, Mr. Ireland?"
A happy inspiration flashed across my mind, and I replied:
"I've been making a rough draft of a play, sir."
"Well, my God! I didn't know you wrote plays."
"Very seldom, at any rate; but I had an idea this morning that I
couldn't resist."
"What is it to be called?" inquired J. P.
"'The Importance of being Pollard,'" I answered, whereupon J. P. and
everyone else at the table had a good laugh. They had all been through a
breakfast with J. P. when Pollard was away, and could sympathize with my
feelings.
Mr. Pulitzer was very sensible of the difficulties which lay in
everybody's path at the times when lack of sleep or a prolonged attack
of pain had made him excessively irritable; and when he had recovered
from one of these periods of strain, and was conscious of having been
rough in his manner, he often took occasion to make amends.
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