The publishers have
done their best to spoil him, but for a literary man I guess
he's quite human. He rescued me from being a governess, and
that's to his credit. If only he didn't take his meals quite
so much as a matter of course...."
"The preposterous thing about him is that he really can
_write_," said Mifflin. "I envy him that. Don't let him know
I said so, but as a matter of fact his prose is almost as good
as Thoreau. He approaches facts as daintily as a cat crossing
a wet road."
"You should see him at dinner," I thought; or rather I meant
to think it, but the words slipped out. I found myself
thinking aloud in a rather disconcerting way while sitting
with this strange little person.
He looked at me. I noticed for the first time that his eyes
were slate blue, with funny birds' foot wrinkles at the corners.
"That's so," he said. "I never thought of that. A fine prose
style certainly presupposes sound nourishment. Excellent
point that... And yet Thoreau did his own cooking. A sort of
Boy Scout I guess, with a badge as kitchen master. Perhaps he
took Beechnut bacon with him into the woods. I wonder who
cooked for Stevenson--Cummy? The `Child's Garden of Verses'
was really a kind of kitchen garden, wasn't it? I'm afraid
the commissariat problem has weighed rather heavily on you.
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