“While you and Lucy,” continued his father, “were talking and laughing together, pleasantly, it did not disturb me at all.”
“When was it, father?” said Rollo.
“Why, when we were looking at the dog standing on his head,” said Lucy; “don’t you remember? I was afraid that we should interrupt you.”
“No,” said her uncle, “that did not disturb me; because you were good-natured and pleasant, and every thing was going on right. But the moment Rollo began to argue about obeying your directions in regard to the drawing, that moment my mind was disturbed. You did not make nearly as much noise as you had done when talking and laughing about the dog; but it was the beginning of a difficulty, and so it troubled my mind.
“And so,” continued his father, “when you came, Rollo, and stood by my side, waiting to speak to me; although I don’t think that you did wrong at all, yet it interrupted me; that is, it attracted my attention from my work. I said to myself, ‘Here is Rollo wanting to speak to me, and I must stop my work, and hear what he has to say.’ It was not so sudden and violent an interruption as it was when you came the first time, and broke in upon my work at once, asking me for the pencils; but still it interrupted me. It required me to stop my work to attend to you.”
“I thought that you could just tell us,” said Rollo, “if you knew where there were any pencils.”
“Yes,” replied his father, “and so I might, if I had only been busy about some ordinary work. But I was very specially busy. I was making calculations; and I knew that, if you came ever so still to speak to me, and should thus make me stop in the middle of a calculation, I should have to give it up, and begin again, and so lose what I had done.
“That’s the reason,” he continued, “why I am not willing to have you in my room when I am very busy. You don’t know very well what an interruption is. Children do not have such perplexing work to do as men have, and they don’t understand how easily the mind may be disturbed.”
“I did not think that I should interrupt you,” said Rollo, “by only going up to the table and standing still.”
“No; and therefore,” said his father, “you were not to blame. But you see now, I suppose, how it did interrupt me. Why, one day you interrupted me, and did a great deal of mischief, without saying a word to me, or even coming near to the table.”