My! how quiet it was in that room! Not a sound except a faint scrabbling
noise now and then from the L behind the portiere,--where some very old
reference books are kept,--and papa's pen scratching across the paper,
and even that stopped presently, and he began to read a book that lay
open beside him. As he sat there reading, with sheets upon sheets of the
Fetich scattered all round him, I looked and looked at him; I don't know
why it is, but somehow, when I'm anywhere alone with papa, I just have
to keep looking at him instead of anything else. He's a tall man, and
thin, and he stoops round his shoulders; he wears glasses, too, like
Felix, and he always looks as if he were thinking of something 'way off
in his mind. Nurse says she's sure he'd forget to eat, if the things
weren't put right under his nose; you see that's because he's all the
time thinking of books. Oh, papa's awfully clever!
[Illustration: "PLAYING FEATHERTOP."]
After a while I found a lollipop in my pocket, and I began to suck
it,--just for company, you know; and truly the room was so quiet I was
afraid papa'd hear me swallow. Every now and then there was that little
scrabble behind the portiere; I made up my mind papa must have some one
there making references for him, and I wondered who.
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