The Man of the World (I shall introduce my friends in the order in which I met them; it is not artistic, but neither is life)—the Man of the World was fourteen years old.
I made his acquaintance in this wise.
One night I went down early to dinner. As I waited in the parlour for the bell to ring, a portière was drawn, and there entered what I supposed to be a little boy. He was so short, chubby, and round-faced that at first sight he looked younger than he was. I bent over, saying graciously as I held out my hand,—
“I wonder if you will tell me your name?”
When he looked up I realized what I had done. Evidently a mistaken world was in the habit of confusing smallness of stature with lack of experience.
“I beg your pardon?” was all he said, but the touch of dignity in the childish petulance of his tone rebuked me. That was the last time I ever patronized Morey Steiner.
The chill in the atmosphere was not dispelled even when he was formally presented to me by our hostess.
At dinner the Man of the World and I sat side by side. It was not until I asked him if he cared for Jefferson’s Rip Van Winkle that my disgrace was retrieved. Dramatic criticism was the child’s strong point,—one of his strong points.
He told me that he thought Rip Van Winkle rather amusing. Then he asked me if I did not consider the knife-whetting business in Irving’s Shylock rather stagey. The part that he cared for most of all was Mr. Mansfield’s Beau Brummell.
Yes, he went to the theatre a great deal, sometimes with his father or his sisters, sometimes alone. That was his father, those were his sisters. His mother was dead. The family had just come to the city, and they were going to stay at this place until they found a house to live in.