“Here!” we cried, “what are you doing with that book?”
“I’m going to read it,” he said, with bland composure.
“Nothing doing,” we asserted sternly. “We began to read that in the subway this morning, and we’re just getting interested in it. You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished it.”
“But you can’t read it in the office,” he said; “you’re too busy.”
“So are you,” we replied; “but we’re going to read it to-night; after an exhausting day we shall need an innocent diversion of that sort.”
We did not think of it at the time, but we now remember that there was a curious evasive lustre in his eye. We wish we could make it plain to you how this person, generally a highly cultivated and responsible citizen, occasionally exhibits himself as naïvely unscrupulous, in a way so charming and unashamed that, with lesser men than ourself, he successfully gets away with it.
A little later in the day, again comes L. E. W. into our nook. He looks about in an absent-minded way, giving much the appearance of the animula vagula blandula the Roman emperor told about. He made one or two random remarks, and seemed to be pretending that he had intended to say something important but had forgotten what it was. We may say that we penetrated his game immediately. We kept an eye on him, and as soon as he had retired we took the detective story and put several newspapers on top of it.
But after all, one cannot sit around the office all day watching the book one is saving for evening reading. By and by we had to go out to lunch, and thought no more of the matter until 5 o’clock. Then, hastily gathering our effects for the trek uptown, we looked for the novel. It was gone.
We could not quite believe it, at first. We thought we must have mislaid it somewhere on top of our desk. We rummaged briskly. No sign of it. With a sudden vile suspicion we ran to L. E. W.’s room. He was gone, too.
Well, we had to console ourself on the ride uptown by reading something else; but you know how it is—when you have set your heart on finishing a particular story....