I wasn't so much flattered as
astounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author's name
meant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to say
nay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me to
accept, meekly, the high gift that the gods in a sportive moment
chose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet-- My hand stole to the half
of a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast.
The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He went
about his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I was
under his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me at
my ease. You can't dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays more
attention to his batter-cakes than to you.
I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes
came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with
only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an
arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled
his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More
scratched him with thoroughness.
"Get out, then, you black hellion!" growled the doctor. Sir Thomas
More got out.
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