“Now, Franklin,” I said, “this shows you what the best circles of art and literature should really be like. Once you’re truly successful and have established a colony of your own—East Franklinia, let us say, or Booth-a-rootha—they will come and visit you in this fashion.”
“Not if I know it, they won’t,” he replied.
The crowd increased. Those who in some institutions might be known as waiters and waitresses, but who here were art directors and directoresses at the very least, were bustling to and fro, armed with all authority and not at all overawed by the standing throng which had now gathered outside the diningroom door. I never saw a more glistening array of fancy glass, plates, cups, knives, forks, spoons, flowers. The small black mission tables—Elbert Hubbardized, of course—were stuffed with this sort of thing to the breaking point. The room fairly sparkled as though the landlord had said, “I’ll give these people their money’s worth if it takes all the plate in the place. They love show and must have it.” I began to feel a little sick and nervous. It was all so grand, and the people about us so plainly avid for it, that I said, “Oh, God, just for a simple, plain board, with an humble yellow plate in the middle. What should I be doing here, anyhow?”
“Well, Franklin,” I said, as gaily as I could, “this is going to be a very sumptuous affair—a very, very sumptuous affair.”
He looked at me wisely, at the crowd, at the long curio case diningroom, and hesitated, but something seemed to be stirring within him.
“What do you say to leaving?” he finally observed. “It seems to me”—then he stopped. His essential good nature and charity would not permit him to criticize. I heaved a sigh of relief, hungry as I was.
We hustled out. I was so happy I forgot all about dinner. There was dear old Speed, as human as anything, sitting comfortably in the front seat, no coat on, his feet amid the machinery for starting things, a cigarette in his mouth, the comic supplement of some Sunday paper spread out before him, as complacent and serene as anyone could be.
He swung the car around in a trice, and was off. Before us lay a long street, overhung with branches through which the sunlight was falling in lovely mottled effects. Overhead was the blue sky. Outward, to right and left, were open fields—the great, enduring, open fields.
“It was a bit too much, wasn’t it?” said Franklin.