THE INTERVIEWER.
It was pitch dark.
The door opened; and I heard the interviewer’s steps in the room. By and by, the sound of a pocket being searched was distinct. It was his own. A match was pulled out and struck; the premises examined and reconnoitered.
A chandelier with three lights hung in the middle of the room. The reporter, speechless and solemn, lighted one burner, then two, then three, chose the most comfortable seat, and installed himself in it, looking at me with an air of triumph.
I was sitting up, wild and desheveled, in my “retiring” clothes.
“Que voulez-vous?” I wanted to yell, my state of drowsiness allowing me to think only in French.
Instead of translating this query by “What do you want?” as I should have done, if I had been in the complete enjoyment of my intellectual faculties, I shouted to him:
“What will you have?”
“Oh, thanks, I’m not particular,” he calmly replied. “I’ll have a little whisky and soda—rye whisky, please.”
My face must have been a study as I rang for whisky and soda.