I well remember the date.
I woke up as chipper as any Robert W. Chambers heroine. All
my doubts and depressions of the evening before had fled, and
I was single-heartedly delighted with the world and everything
in it. The hotel was a poor place, but it would have taken
more than that to mar my composure. I had a bitterly cold
bath in a real country tin tub, and then eggs and pancakes for
breakfast. At the table was a drummer who sold lightning
rods, and several other travelling salesmen. I'm afraid my
conversation was consciously modelled along the line of what
the Professor would have said if he had been there, but at any
rate I got along swimmingly. The travelling men, after a
moment or two of embarrassed diffidence, treated me quite as
one of themselves and asked me about my "line" with interest.
I described what I was doing and they all said they envied me
my freedom to come and go independently of trains. We talked
cheerfully for a long time, and almost without intending to,
I started preaching about books. In the end they insisted on
my showing them Parnassus. We all went out to the stable,
where the van was quartered, and they browsed over the
shelves.
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