"My dear Johnnie, your proposition is both absurd and—" as if that were the last enormity—"very unbusinesslike!"
"But I will then become a great poet! On my word of honour, I will! and I will be a great honour to the Gregory family!"
He shook his head. He rose, standing erect and slender, like a small flagpole. As I rose I towered high over the little-bodied, trim man.
"Come, you haven't eaten yet?"
"No!"
Well, he had a sort of a heart, after all ... some family feeling.
Walking slightly ahead, so as not to seem to be in my company, old Grandfather Gregory took me to a—lunch counter ... bowing to numerous friends and acquaintances on the way ... once he stepped aside to a hurried conference, leaving me standing forlorn and solitary, like a scarecrow in a field.
I grew so angry at him I could hardly bridle my anger in.
"—like oyster sandwiches?" he asked.