You're a darned queer ungrateful cuss, and always were."
"I know it," said Austin, "and such being the 'nature of the beast,'
don't bother trying to make me over. You can be grateful and devoted
enough for both of us. Now, do shut up and let me go to sleep--I sure
will be thankful to get a room to myself, if I'm not for anything else."
"I don't see how any one can help being crazy over her," continued
Thomas, thumping his pillow as if he would like to pummel any one who
disagreed with him.
"Don't you?" asked Austin.
The next night he was in New York with Mr. Stevens, trying hard to feel
natural in a tiny flat which was only one of fifty in the same great
house. A colored butler served an elaborate dinner at eight o'clock in
the evening, and brought black coffee, liqueurs, and cigars into the
living-room afterwards, and, worst of all, unpacked all his scanty
belongings and laid them about his room. Austin really suffered, and the
cold perspiration ran down his back, but he watched his host carefully
and waited from one moment to another to see what would be expected of
him next; he managed, too, before he went to bed, to ask a question which
had been on his mind for some time.
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