My work for the day lay unfinished on my desk, but Mr. Bryant gave no heed to it. He questioned me concerning my views of this and that in literature, my likes and dislikes, my estimates of classic English works, and of the men who had produced them. Now and then he challenged my opinions and set me to defend them. After a while he took his leave in his usual undemonstrative fashion.
"Good-afternoon," was absolutely his only word of parting, and after he had gone I wondered if I had presumed too much in the fearless expression of my opinions or in combating his own, or whether I had offended him in some other way. For I knew him very slightly then and misinterpreted a reticence that was habitual with him--even constitutional, I think. Still less did I understand that during that talk of two hours' duration he had been subjecting me to a rigid examination in English literature.
The _Evening Post_ of that afternoon published my review of an important book, which I had tried to treat with the care it deserved. I learned afterwards that the article pleased Mr. Bryant, but whether or not it had any influence upon what followed I do not know. What followed was this: the next day a little before noon, Mr. Sperry came into my den with a laugh and a frown playing tag on his face.
"Mr. Bryant has just been in," he said. "He walked into my room and said to me: 'Mr. Sperry, I have appointed Mr. Eggleston literary editor. Good-morning, Mr. Sperry.' And with that he left again, giving me no time to say a word. In a way, I'm glad, but I shall miss you from your other work."
I reassured him, telling him I could easily do those parts of that other work for which he most needed me, and so the matter was "arranged to the satisfaction of everybody concerned," as the dueling people used to say when two blustering cowards had apologized instead of shooting each other.
Thus began an acquaintance with Mr. Bryant that quickly became as intimate as I suppose any acquaintance with him ever did--or at any rate any acquaintance begun after the midyears of his life. Once in a while I passed a Sunday with him at his Roslyn home, but chiefly such converse as I enjoyed with him was held in the office of the _Evening Post_, and of course it was always of his seeking, as I scrupulously avoided intruding myself upon his attention. Our interviews usually occurred in this way: he would enter the library, which communicated with my little writing room by an open doorway, and after looking over some books, would enter my room and settle himself in a chair, with some remark or question. The conversation thus began would continue for such time as he chose, ten minutes, half an hour, two hours, as his leisure and inclination might determine.