|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: my hair up and became Prof. Pickleman. I went to another hotel,
registered, and sent a telegram to Scudder to come to see me at once
on important art business. The elevator dumped him on me in less than
an hour. He was a foggy man with a clarion voice, smelling of
Connecticut wrappers and naphtha.
"'Hello, Profess!' he shouts. 'How's your conduct?'
"I rumpled my hair some more and gave him a blue glass stare.
"'Sir,' says I, 'are you Cornelius T. Scudder? Of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania?'
"'I am,' says he. 'Come out and have a drink.'
"'I've neither the time nor the desire,' says I, 'for such harmful and
| 
