“But why do you heat the kettle with paper?” she asked.
He smiled drily:
“Ah, Betty—you push me to the extremity of truth. Well, it is because I have nothing else to burn.... Only my rejected poems. And I am badly in need of the coffee. The weather is very severe.”
Betty’s eyes filled with tears:
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Tut, tut! you mustn’t damp the spirits of the kettle, Betty—it begins to boil.... Wonderfully heating thing—poetry!”
He went to the kettle.
“You shall have first brew,” he added—“that you may never again despise coffee warmed by the passionate glow of verse.... There is a dearth of cups—and my landlady has a gouty leg—and the journeyings of the little maid-of-all-work make my heart ache—but I usurp the news.”
As the big man busied himself with his hospitalities, Betty told him of her errand—begged him to come back with her and give his counsel and aid.
He was for going straight away; but she insisted on sitting there until he had drunk his coffee.