Or Hobson
may not be going home that night, or he may object to carrying a parcel
in the subway, or for any other reason he will omit to take the book
with him. "The next day," says Cooper, "I pay Hobson a return visit, and
forget the book on his hall-table. Frequently Hobson may be too busy to
take notice of the accident. In that case I call him up on the telephone
as soon as I leave his house and ask in great agitation whether by any
chance I have left a volume of Maeterlinck on his hall-table. Sometimes
I add that Woolsey has been after that volume for weeks. That night, I
feel sure, Hobson will carry the book up to his bedroom."
And as Cooper spoke I thought of the Smith family, whom, by methods like
those I have described, Cooper succeeded in saving from themselves.
Nerves in the Smith family were badly rasped. The mother was not making
great headway in her social campaigns. Her husband chafed at his
children's idleness and extravagance. The children went in sullen
fashion about their own business. They had no resources of their own.
There was gloom in that household and stifled rancour, and the danger
of worse things to come, until the day when Cooper called and forgot at
one blow a copy of "Richard Feverel," the "Bab Ballads," and the third
volume of Ferrero's "Rome.
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