And that was her policy, too, though now and then she carried it too far. One day I telephoned her and asked her what she had been doing that morning.
“I’ve been reading the most fascinating book,” she said.
“What book?” I asked politely.
“I can’t remember the title,” she said, “but it’s about a man in love with a girl, and he——”
“Who wrote it?” I interrupted.
“Wait a minute,” said Maude. I waited four minutes. “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. “I mislaid the book. I thought I left it in my room and I looked all around for it, and then I asked Hulda if she’d seen it, and she said no, though I asked her that the other day about something else, and she said no, and later I found out that she had seen it and put it in a drawer, so I went to the library and the book wasn’t there, and then I went back to my room and looked again, and I was just coming back to tell you I couldn’t find it when here it is, guess where, right on the telephone stand. Who wrote it? Hutchison is the author. A. M. S.—no, wait a minute—A. S. M. Hutchinson, not Hutchison. There’s an ‘n’ in it. Two ‘n’s’ really. But I mean an ‘n’ between the ‘i’ and the ‘s.’ I mean it’s Hut-chin-son, and not Hut-chi-son. But what’s the difference who writes a book as long as it’s a good book?”
There may have been more, but I was reasonably certain that the author’s name was Hutchinson, so I hung up the receiver, though the way I felt at the time was that hanging was too good for it.
I had dinner with her that night at a restaurant.
“Coffee?” asked the waiter.
“No,” I said. And to her: “Coffee keeps me awake. If I took a cup now I wouldn’t close an eye all night. Some folks can drink it and not notice it, but take me; I’m funny that way, and if I took a cup now I wouldn’t close an eye all night. Some can, and some can’t. I like it, but it doesn’t like me. Ha, ha! I wouldn’t close an eye all night, and if I don’t get my sleep—and a good eight hours at that—I’m not fit for a thing all the next day. It’s a pretty important thing, sleep; and——”