The Cruise of the Jasper B.
ordinary of scissors. The copy paper was quite undistinguished in appearance. The lead pencils had the most untemperamental looking points.
Cleggett himself, as he filled and lighted the pipe, did it in the most matter-of-fact sort of way. Then he remarked to the head of the copy desk, in an average kind of voice:
"H'lo, Jim."
"H'lo, Clegg," said Jim, without looking up. "Might as well begin on this bunch of early copy, I guess."
For more than ten years Cleggett had done the same thing at the same time in the same manner, six nights of the week.
What he did on the seventh night no one ever thought to inquire. If any member of the Enterprise staff had speculated about it at all he would have assumed that Cleggett spent that seventh evening in some way essentially commonplace, sober, unemotional, quiet, colorless, dull and Brooklynitish.
Cleggett lived in Brooklyn. The superficial observer might have said that Cleggett and Brooklyn were made for each other.
The superficial observer! How many there are
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