Clarence Day, Jr.

“ I speak of "luck"—that is the charitable view; it's these ignorant cooks. I waited for my rabbit with quite a black, dizzy feeling in my head.
Then Filber reappeared. He still seemed disconcerted by having been sat upon. His expression was quite peevish, I noticed. I began to dislike him. He had a dim, misty look, and I like hearty people. The waiter had tilted his chair up against the table, Broadway style, to show it was reserved. (We have the most ignorant waiters in the world at our club.) ”

“ After I had fallen over that phonograph, I decided to put it away for good, and began looking for a box to put it in. It is not easy to find a box that will hold a phonograph; the only one I had that was big enough was full of old letters. It occurred to me that it was hardly worth while my keeping those letters; I was always meaning to look them over and think about other days and so forth, but perhaps it wouldn't be much fun, after all. Nothing is much fun when the cooking is bad. ”

“ She started to say something cheerful about its helping my digestion. Blind! Blind to the end! I raised my hand impressively to check her.
"It is not because of my digestion, my poor Hattie," said I, with a pitying look. "It is simply the cooking." ”

“ A very decent old fellow indeed. He was in the wholesale anchovy business, I recollected, his rank having come to him from a yacht-club, not from the government, and I was just thinking of the fact that one cannot buy any really digestible anchovies nowadays, when I observed that a pair of legs exactly like the Commodore's were coming toward me up the aisle of the car. I looked up, and there stood old Filber himself. ”

“ Filber was drowned in 1905, I believe, on his yacht."
"Exactly," I said, determinedly eating my rabbit.
Grillquist and the others looked at one another, blanker than ever. They have such stupid faces, that set. Not mobile, not intelligent. "Don't you want to tell us all about it, Sims?" they finally said.
This made me rather hot. Stop in the middle of a Welsh rabbit to tell these casual intruders about old Filber? "Oh, damn old Filber!" I angrily remarked. "You and he between you will give me indigestion if you are not careful, and my wife will think it was this innocent rabbit. ”

“ The car I took being empty, I was given a good opportunity to concentrate my mind, which I consider an excellent sedative and exercise; fix your mind on some one thing—anything you like—and think only of that, and you will find that after a few minutes you feel calmer all over. It dissipates one's annoyances amazingly. ”

“ Your indigestion will get the better of you if you're not more careful, and you will be 'seeing' things. People with stomach trouble often do. Ever since they opened that late evening grill there, and began serving underdone Welsh rabbits, you—"
"I beg that you will stop, Hattie," I interrupted. "You are utterly and entirely mistaken. I am not interested in the club's Welsh rabbits. ”

“ It is queer how it makes one feel to burn old letters. One seems to be consigning not merely the letters themselves to destruction, but the senders. Aunt Martin had been dead a long time, but she seemed deader still when her letters were destroyed. ”

“ I had got my hand on the door as I was talking, and now I opened it. "Furthermore, you are in this instance doubly wrong—doubly wrong, let me inform you—because not only am I not going to eat anything, but I am not even going near the club. You need not worry about my indigestion." She was looking mockingly at me, but I paid no heed. "I tell you plainly that I am going to Uncle Wolley's. Good night." And I immediately shut the door after me. These women always want the last word.
It is extraordinary the way people interfere with one's private affairs, it It isn't only Hattie. ”

“ Now why should any one behave like that? My disposition is to be companionable and jolly. It is pretty hard to be treated like a wet blanket or a spoil-sport, just because I like to join my friends occasionally. ”