5.—The Reminiscences of Mr. Apricot
“Rather a cold day, isn’t it?” I said as I entered the club.
The man I addressed popped his head out from behind a newspaper and I saw it was old Mr. Apricot. So I was sorry that I had spoken.
“Not so cold as the winter of 1866,” he said, beaming with benevolence.
He had an egg-shaped head, bald, with some white hair fluffed about the sides of it. He had a pink face with large blue eyes, behind his spectacles, benevolent to the verge of imbecility.
“Was that a cold winter?” I asked.
“Bitter cold,” he said. “I have never told you, have I, of my early experiences in life?”
“I think I have heard you mention them,” I murmured, but he had already placed a detaining hand on my sleeve. “Sit down,” he said. Then he continued: “Yes, it was a cold winter. I was going to say that it was the coldest I have ever experienced, but that might be an exaggeration. But it was certainly colder than any winter that YOU have ever seen, or that we ever have now, or are likely to have. In fact the winters NOW are a mere nothing,”—here Mr. Apricot looked toward the club window where the driven snow was beating in eddies against the panes,—“simply nothing. One doesn’t feel them at all,”—here he turned his eyes towards the glowing fire that flamed in the open fireplace. “But when I was a boy things were very different. I have probably never mentioned to you, have I, the circumstances of my early life?”
He had, many times. But he had turned upon me the full beam of his benevolent spectacles and I was too weak to interrupt.