'What the devil are you patronizing him for? Don't you see that he is
hooked to something and you are not, that he is warm and you are
freezing, that he is part of the wave,--the wave, man,--and that you are
just a miserable, tossing clot?'
* * * * *
It was the same Sunday. Mr. Squem sat in his room--extremely dennish,
smitingly red as to walls, oppressive with plush upholstery. A huge
deerhead, jutting from over the mantel, divided honors with a
highly-colored September Morn, affrontingly framed. On a shelf stood a
small bottle. It contained a finger of Mr. Squem, amputated years
before, in alcohol.
On the knees of the owner of the room was Volume One of the Universal
History--Number 32, so red-ink figures affirmed, of a limited edition of
five hundred sets. Mr. Squem's name was displayed, in very large Old
English, on the fly-leaf, and above was an empty oval wherein his
portrait might be placed.
'No use,' soliloquized the owner of this treasure, 'no use. If I _could_
chew it up and get it down,--or two of it,--_that_ wouldn't slide under
the thing that isn't there. Nothing will ever put me in the class of
Professor Browne or that preacher on the car, or bring the rest of me up
to my clothes.'
He rose and stretched.
'Maybe,' he said, addressing a huge chocolate-colored bust of an Indian
lady, 'maybe I can catch up to those fellows some time--but not here.
Noon, I bet,'--looking at his watch,--'and it is to eat.'
He contemplated the Mantegna baby.
'So long,' he said, 'you're running things,' and snapped his watch.