If you will, say I hope there's
no feelin'; and when you think of it, drop me a line, please."
The SECOND Chapter
A week had elapsed since my arrival in Bellevue. I had been introduced
to Doctor Castleton, and had exchanged a few words with him. I had also
listened to several of his street-corner talks, and my interest in him
from day to day had increased. This interest must have been reciprocal,
for he seemed to look for my coming; but then, in whom was he not
interested? I liked him for his real goodness, was entertained by his
erratic ways, and admired his intellectual brightness. Never before had
I come in contact with a mind at once so spontaneous and so versatile.
It was perhaps his most striking peculiarity, that he seemed always to
be looking for something startling to occur; and in a dearth of the new
and sensational from without, he produced excitement for the community
from within. The weather, for instance, was growing warmer, and the
summer was apparently to be a sultry one: hence, before the season was
ended we were to look for the most sweeping epidemics of disease; a
comet had been sighted by one of our comet-hunters, and we were all to
say later whether or not it would have been better if we'd never been
born, and so on, and so on.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30