.. and there spend a long time in the quiet study of poetry
... thinking of nothing, caring for nothing else."
"No! how absurd!" he was snapping decisively. I came to from my vision.
"My dear Johnnie, your proposition is both absurd and--" as if that were
the last enormity--"very unbusinesslike!"
"But I will then become a great poet! On my word of honour, I will! and
I will be a great honour to the Gregory family!"
He shook his head. He rose, standing erect and slender, like a small
flagpole. As I rose I towered high over the little-bodied, trim man.
"Come, you haven't eaten yet?"
"No!"
Well, he had a sort of a heart, after all ... some family feeling.
Walking slightly ahead, so as not to seem to be in my company, old
Grandfather Gregory took me to a--lunch counter ... bowing to numerous
friends and acquaintances on the way ... once he stepped aside to a
hurried conference, leaving me standing forlorn and solitary, like a
scarecrow in a field.
I grew so angry at him I could hardly bridle my anger in.
"--like oyster sandwiches?" he asked.
* * * * *
He didn't even wait to let me choose my own food.
"Two oyster sandwiches and--a cup of coffee," he barked.
While I ate he stepped outside and talked with another friend.
* * * * *
"Good-bye," he was bidding me, extending a tiny hand, the back of it
covered with steel-coloured hairs, "you'd better go back up to
Jersey--just heard your daddy is very sick there .
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