“Nearly all the really great men of literature,” comes back Harold as prompt as if he was speakin’ a piece, “have begun their careers by writing verse. I presume mine might be considered somewhat immature; but I am impelled from within to do it. All that will pass, however, when I enter on my serious work.”
“Oh, then you’ve got a job on the hook, have you!” says I.
“I expect,” says Harold, smilin’ sort of indulgent and runnin’ his fingers careless through his thick coppery hair, “to produce my first novel when I am twenty. It will have a somber theme, something after the manner of Turgenieff. Do you not find Turgenieff very stimulating?”
“Harold,” says I, “all them Hungarian wines are more or less heady, and a kid like you shouldn’t monkey with any of ’em.”
He looks almost pained at that. “You’re chaffing me now, I suppose,” says he. “That sort of thing, though, I never indulge in. Humor, you know, is but froth on the deep seas of thought. It has never seemed to me quite worth one’s while. You will pardon my frankness, I know.”
“Harold,” says I, “you’re a wizard. So it’s nix on the josh, eh?”
“What singular metaphors you employ!” says he. “Do you know, I can hardly follow you. However, colloquial language does not offend my ear. It is only when I see it in print that I shudder.”
“Me too,” says I. “I’m just as sore on these foreign languages as anyone. So you’re visitin’ next door, eh? Enjoyin’ yourself?”
That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his life; but, say, he didn’t need any such encouragement. He was a willin’ and ready converser, Harold was; and—my!—what a lot of classy words he did have on tap! First off I wondered how it was a youngster like him could dig up so many; but when I’d heard a little more about him I could account for it all.
He’d cut his teeth, as you might say, on the encyclopedia. Harold’s father had been a professor of dead languages, and I guess he must have died of it. Anyway, Mother was a widow, and from things Harold dropped I judged she was more or less frisky, spendin’ her time at bridge and chasin’ teas and dinner parties. It was clear she wa’n’t any highbrow, such as Father must have been. All of which was disappointin’ to Harold. He made no bones of sayin’ so.