VIII

ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON


I had Monson with me twice each week-day--early in the morning and again
after business hours until bed-time. Also he spent the whole of every
Saturday and Sunday with me. He developed astonishing dexterity as a
teacher, and as soon as he realized that I had no false pride and was
thoroughly in earnest, he handled me without gloves--like a boxing teacher
who finds that his pupil has the grit of a professional. It was easy enough
for me to grasp the theory of my new business--it was nothing more than "Be
natural." But the rub came in making myself naturally of the right sort.
I had--as I suppose every man of intelligence and decent instincts has--a
disposition to be friendly and simple. But my manner was by nature what you
might call abrupt. My not very easy task was to learn the subtle difference
between the abrupt that injects a tonic into social intercourse, and the
abrupt that makes the other person shut up with a feeling of having been
insulted.

Then, there was the matter of good taste in conversation. Monson found,
as I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. As
I said to him: "I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chest
measure." But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discover
even in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of at
least an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have liked