“I do not see why an address composed in the Astor Library should not be entirely satisfactory?” he questioned, in his smooth, self-controlled manner.
“Did you never hear of the man who left the theatre in the middle of Hamlet because, he said, he didn’t care to hear a play that was all quotations?” I asked, with a touch of irony.
“I presume the story has some connection in your mind with the subject in hand, but I am unable to see the appositeness?” he said interrogatively and evidently puzzled.
“I merely mentioned it lest you might not know that Pope never lived in Grub Street.”
He looked at me, still ignorant that I was laughing at him. “You think it injudicious to have it done by Mather?” he questioned, naming a fellow who did special work for the paper at times.
“Not at all,” I replied, “provided you label the address ‘hash,’ so that people who have some discrimination won’t suppose you ignorant that it is twice-cooked meat you are giving them,” and, turning, I went on with my work as if the matter were ended.
But the next day he told me, “I have concluded to have you compose that oration, Dr. Hartzmann;” and from that moment of petty victory I have not feared my employer.
I wrote the address, and it so pleased Mr. Whitely that, not content with delivering it, he had it handsomely printed, and sent copies to all his friends.
The resulting praise he received clearly whetted his appetite for authorship, for not long after he said to me, “Dr. Hartzmann, you told me, when you sold me this library, that you were writing a history of the Turks. How nearly completed is it?”
“I hope to have it ready for press within three months.”