"It can't be done," was the verdict.
The man hadn't enough humanity, we figured. He was forever dramatizing
himself, forever attitudinizing. And those various suits of his--how
they agonized us! We were slouches, I know, with rumpled hair and, I
fear not overparticular as to our linen during the greater part of the
week. Some of us had families to support, even in those young days--or
at least a father or a mother up the State to whom we had to send a
monthly cheque out of our meagre wages.
I can't say that we were envious of Shelby because of his
single-blessedness--he was only twenty-two at that time; but it hurt us
to know that he didn't really have to work in Herald Square, and that he
had neat bachelor quarters down in Gramercy Park, and a respectable club
or two, and week-ended almost where he chose. His blond hair was always
beautifully plastered over a fine brow, and he would never soil his
forehead by wearing a green shade when he bent over his typewriter late
at night. That would have robbed him of some of his dignity, made him
look anything but the English gentleman he was so anxious to appear.
I think he looked upon us as just so much dust beneath his feet. He
would say "Good evening" in a way that irritated every one of us--as
though the words had to be got out somehow, and he might as well say
them and get them over with, and as though he dreaded any reply.
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