"
Such was Tana's garrulous premiere in the gray house--and he fulfilled
its promise. Though he was conscientious and honorable, he was
unquestionably a terrific bore. He seemed unable to control his tongue,
sometimes continuing from paragraph to paragraph with a look akin to
pain in his small brown eyes.
Sunday and Monday afternoons he read the comic sections of the
newspapers. One cartoon which contained a facetious Japanese butler
diverted him enormously, though he claimed that the protagonist, who to
Anthony appeared clearly Oriental, had really an American face. The
difficulty with the funny paper was that when, aided by Anthony, he had
spelled out the last three pictures and assimilated their context with a
concentration surely adequate for Kant's "Critique," he had entirely
forgotten what the first pictures were about.
In the middle of June Anthony and Gloria celebrated their first
anniversary by having a "date." Anthony knocked at the door and she ran
to let him in. Then they sat together on the couch calling over those
names they had made for each other, new combinations of endearments ages
old. Yet to this "date" was appended no attenuated good-night with its
ecstasy of regret.
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