And he actually came. But he stopped when he caught sight of the open trap and of the mattress beneath it.
“How will that suit you?” asked Mr. Cooke, smiling broadly as he wiped his face with an embroidered handkerchief.
The Celebrity looked at the mattress, then at me, and lastly at Mr. Cooke. His face was a study:
“And—And you think I am going to get in there?” he said, his voice shaking.
My client fell back a step.
“Why not?” he demanded. “It's about your size, comfortable, and all the air you want” (here Mr. Cooke stuck his finger through the bit hole). “Damn me, if I were in your fix, I wouldn't stop at a kennel.”
“Then you're cursed badly mistaken,” said the Celebrity, going back to his corner; “I'm tired of being made an ass of for you and your party.”
“An ass!” exclaimed my client, in proper indignation.
“Yes, an ass,” said the Celebrity. And he resumed his book.
It would seem that a student of human nature, such as every successful writer should be, might by this time have arrived at some conception of my client's character, simple as it was, and have learned to overlook the slight peculiarity in his mode of expressing himself. But here the Celebrity fell short, if my client's emotions were not pitched in the same key as those of other people, who shall say that his heart was not as large or his sympathies as wide as many another philanthropist?