Mr. Stone looked at him steadily before answering:
"If I work after cocoa, I find it clogs the liver."
"Then, if you'll let me, sir, I'll stay a little."
"It is boiling," said Mr. Stone. He took the saucepan off the flame,
and, distending his frail cheeks, blew. Then, while the steam mingled
with his frosty beard, he brought two cups from a cupboard, filled one
of them, and looked at Hilary.
"I should like you," he said, "to hear three or four pages I have just
completed; you may perhaps be able to suggest a word or two."
He placed the saucepan back on the stove, and grasped the cup he had
filled.
"I will drink my cocoa, and read them to you."
Going to the desk, he stood, blowing at the cup.
Hilary turned up the collar of his coat against the night wind which
was visiting the room, and glanced at the empty cup, for he was rather
hungry. He heard a curious sound: Mr. Stone was blowing his own tongue.
In his haste to read, he had drunk too soon and deeply of the cocoa.
"I have burnt my mouth," he said.
Hilary moved hastily towards him: "Badly? Try cold milk, sir."
Mr. Stone lifted the cup.
"There is none," he said, and drank again.
'What would I not give,' thought Hilary, 'to have his singleness of
heart!'
There was the sharp sound of a cup set down. Then, out of a rustling of
papers, a sort of droning rose:
"'The Proletariat--with a cynicism natural to those who really are in
want, and even amongst their leaders only veiled when these attained
a certain position in the public eye--desired indeed the wealth and
leisure of their richer neighbours, but in their long night of struggle
with existence they had only found the energy to formulate their
pressing needs from day to day.
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