You were a stranger to him; some magazine had accepted a story that you had written and published it.

R.H.D.had found something to like and admire in that story (very little perhaps), and it was his duty and pleasure to tell you so.

If he had liked the story very much he would send you instead of a note a telegram.

Or it might be that you had drawn a picture, or, as a cub reporter, had shown golden promise in a half column of unsigned print, R.H.D.would find you out, and find time to praise you and help you.

So it was that when he emerged from his room at sharp eight o'clock, he was wide-awake and happy and hungry, and whistled and double-shuffled with his feet, out of excessive energy, and carried in his hands a whole sheaf of notes and letters and telegrams.
Breakfast with him was not the usual American breakfast, a sullen, dyspeptic gathering of persons who only the night before had rejoiced in each other's society.