"I don't know how to describe it exactly," Berri replied; "he's a kind of connecting link with the literary past; he 's what phonographs will be when we get them perfected. Dickens once borrowed his opera-glasses on the evening of the twelfth of June years ago, and some years later Thackeray stepped on his foot at a dinner-party. He remembers what they said perfectly, and gets asked out a lot. I 've heard him tell the Thackeray thing twice now, and he 's going to do it again in a minute if there 's enough of a crowd."
We went over and listened to him for ever so long, and although Dickens had borrowed his opera-glasses and Thackeray had stepped on his foot, he was n't in the least what Berri had led me to expect. I found him delightful and was sorry when he had to leave. (Berri insisted that he was driven rapidly to town to the Palace Theatre, where he was due to appear at 10.50—between a trick bicyclist and a Dutch comedian.)
When we had said good-by to him, Fleetwood came up bringing a pleasant-looking chap with spectacles. (I had often seen him in the Yard.)
"This is Mr. Paul," Fleetwood said to me, "and he wants to have words with you."
Mr. Paul talked about the old gentleman for a minute or two, and then said quite abruptly,—
"We 've been reading your stuff in English 83, Mr. Wood, and the fellows think it's darned good. I wish you 'd let us have some of it for the Advocate."
I was so astonished I just looked at him. Then he went on to say that he wanted to print two of my themes—The Jimsons, and a description of something I saw one night in town—and that if I wrote a third and it turned out to be good, they would make me an editor! He had said that the Monthly had designs on me (imagine), and that although the Advocate did n't often do things so hastily, it (I wonder if it's silly of me to write this down?) didn't want to lose me. I told him that I 'd never dreamed of getting on one of the papers and felt as if he were making fun of me. But he assured me he was n't.
Duggie and Berrisford and I walked home together, and when we reached my room Duggie and Berri began to squabble over Fleetwood's Wednesday Evenings, and talked and talked until Duggie, seeing how late it was, got undressed (talking all the time) and left his clothes on my floor, and continued the conversation even after he had gone into his own room, turned out the lights and got into bed.
Berri, of course, started out by saying,—
"Well, I don't see what 's the good of it," and Duggie immediately undertook to enlighten him. Whereupon Berri—fearing that the attempt might be successful—took another tack and exclaimed,—