He reads Mark Twain, or had read him, and he enjoyed him, but he said
that when he met Mark Twain the latter had little or nothing to say, and
that it was only with the greatest difficulty that he got him to talk at
all. He subscribed, he told me, to 'Harper's Magazine,' and he was in
the habit of reading short stories aloud to his family, in English. He
admired the American short story, and I remember that he declared: 'The
Americans know how to plunge into a short story. We Germans are too
long-winded.'"
When Professor Smith talks about the Kaiser, you say to yourself: "I
know that it is growing late, but I cannot bear to leave until I have
heard the rest of this"; when he drifts presently to O. Henry, you say
the same; and so it is always, no matter what his subject. At last,
however, the grandfather's clock in the hall below his study sends up a
stern message which is not to be mistaken, whereupon you arise
reluctantly from your comfortable chair, spill the cigar ashes out of
your lap onto the rug, dust off your clothing, and take your leave. Nor
is your regret at departing lessened by the fact that you must go to
your bilious-colored bedroom in the New Gleason, and that you will not
see the university, or Professor C. Alphonso Smith, or Mrs. Smith again,
because you are leaving upon the morrow.
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