H. D. had found something to like and admire in that story
(very little perhaps), and it was his duty and pleasure to
tell you so. If he had liked the story very much he would
send you instead of a note a telegram. Or it might be that
you had drawn a picture, or, as a cub reporter, had shown
golden promise in a half column of unsigned print, R. H. D.
would find you out, and find time to praise you and help you.
So it was that when he emerged from his room at sharp eight
o'clock, he was wide-awake and happy and hungry, and whistled
and double-shuffled with his feet, out of excessive energy,
and carried in his hands a whole sheaf of notes and letters
and telegrams.
"Breakfast with him was not the usual American breakfast, a
sullen, dyspeptic gathering of persons who only the night
before had rejoiced in each other's society. With him it was
the time when the mind is, or ought to be, at its best, the
body at its freshest and hungriest. Discussions of the latest
plays and novels, the doings and undoings of statesmen, laughter
and sentiment--to him, at breakfast, these things were as
important as sausages and thick cream.
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