Thropper was told that the President was engaged and that we should have to wait our turn. So we sat in high-backed chairs, in line with three others, where I waited with a palpitating heart that began to spell panic if my turn were delayed much longer. To increase this threatened panic of courage, Thropper began to whisper terrible things about the President: how he was a wonderful reader of books and had a mentality and memory so well disciplined that he was able to read an entire page at a mere glance and be able to pass an exacting examination on its contents a day afterwards! Thropper also whispered in an awe-struck voice,
“The President just feeds on learning! He can speak in ten different languages, read in fifteen, about, and think in twelve: so they say. You mustn’t fool with him or tell him any funny stories! He’d never get over it, Priddy. Now, come on, it’s your turn. I’ll introduce you and leave you with him!”
My sensitive imagination enkindled by all that Thropper had fed me on, in the waiting room, I appeared before the President considerably unnerved. He sat behind his desk, waiting for me: the embodiment of every austere report I had heard. His mouth twitched; twitched all the time. His eyes shone as brightly as those of an aroused lion from the dark mask of a cave. It was a race between his mouth and his eyes: the mouth slipped in and out, lip over lip, lip under and over lip, while those two small eyes snapped back and forth with electric suddenness. His gaunt features had the pallor of death. A world of woe, of hunger, of intellectual dissipation could be read in him. He tried to compose his features into a smile of welcome when he saw me, but it seemed so unusual a thing for those ascetic signs to be disturbed by the intrusion of anything pleasurable, that the first attempt ended in a sad failure. He did not try again. His voice was tired when he spoke. It had neither vibration nor health in it. I stood before that presence chilled, uninspired, while a strong temptation to flight pulled on my courage.
“Sir,” began Thropper, fingering his cap, “I’ve brought Mr. Priddy in. He came yesterday, and I’ve been letting him share my room till he saw you.”
“‘Had seen,’ you should say, sir,” corrected the President, “if you are after the proper tense of the verb. You may go.”
Thropper sighed deeply as he left, probably over the grammatical correction just imposed on him.
A seat was indicated and I was asked to place myself in it. Then the President said,
“Just tell your story in your own way till I interrupt you, young man.”
Thereupon I went into such minute details about myself, that I soon brought from the official a grunt of impatience.
“No,” he said, “I’m not a bit eager to know how many times your family has moved about the country. I want to know the salient things about you yourself.”