One hit him with a dull thud and made him cry out with
pain, and he left off pursuing us. It was so dark we could not be
identified.
One of our favourite diversions was to follow mature lovers as they
strolled a-field, hoping to catch them in the midst of intimate
endearments.
* * * * *
My father received a raise of a few dollars in salary. As it was they
paid him too little, because he was easy-going. The additional weekly
money warranted our leaving the Jenkinses and renting four rooms all our
own, over the main street. This meant that I was to have a whole room to
myself, and I was glad ... a whole room where I could stand a small
writing desk and set up my books in rows. With an extreme effort I
burned my underground books.
* * * * *
All the women liked my father. He dressed neatly and well. His trousers
were never without their fresh crease. He was very vain of his neat
appearance, even to the wearing of a fresh-cut flower in his buttonhole.
This vanity made him also wear his derby indoors and out, because of his
entirely bald head.
Every time he could devise an excuse for going to the departments where
the women worked, he would do so, and flirt with them. He, for this
reason I am sure, made special friends with Schlegel, foreman of the
collar department. I never saw a man derive a keener pleasure out of
just standing and talking with women.
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