Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/77

 I shall have, when I can afford it. He has got together a lot of knick-knacks and curios, but takes them lightly. 'Sorry I've only one big arm-chair,' he said, handing me his cigarette-case and settling me down in comfort; 'but I entertain very seldom. I should like to be hospitable,' he went on; '—I really think it's in me; but that's pretty much out of the question here. I have no chef, no dining-room of my own, no ballroom, certainly Perhaps, before very long, I shall have to make a change.'

"He asked me about Freeford, and I didn't realize until I was on my way back that he had assumed my home town just as he had assumed my lodging. Well, all right; I never resent a friendly interest. He sat in a less-easy chair and blew his smoke-rings and wondered if I had been a small-town boy. 'I'm one, too,' he said; '—at least Churchton, forty years—at least Churchton, thirty years ago, was not all it is to-day. It has always had its own special tone, of course; but in my young—in my younger days it was just a large country village. Fewer of us went into town to make money, or to spend it.'

"And then he asked me to go into town, one evening soon, and help him spend some. He suggested it rather shyly; à tâtons, I will say—though French is not my business. He offered a dinner at a restaurant, and the theatre afterwards. Did I accept? Indeed I did. Think, Arthur! after all the movies and restaurants round the elms and the fountain (tho' you don't know them yet)! I will say, too, that his cigarettes were rather better than my own