WHEN PIPPA PASSED
janitor paid him a little to ease his own hours of night-watching, and often asked him to supper. He read nearly all day and wrote at night. It was better than the mills or the drug-store. He supposed he was lazy—his family always said he was.
"Come to this address to-morrow afternoon and bring the rest of your poetry with you," said Delafield, "I have an engagement at nine. May I keep this one till you come?"—he shook the foolscap significantly. The boy hesitated, almost imperceptibly, then nodded. As Delafield left the little table he did not rise with him, but sat with his eyes fixed on the smoke-rings.
"They do not teach courtesy in the night-schools, evidently," mused the older man, peering for a cab; "but one can't have everything. My manners have been on occasion commended—but I can't write poetry like that."
He tasted in advance the pleasure of reading the poem to Anne: how her brown eyes would dilate and glow, how eagerly her long, slender fingers would clasp and unclasp. People called her
75
