"That is, if flavour cuts no figure with you,
and you'd rather eat condemned army stores than not!"
I sat down and wrote a letter of thanks. It was rather a nice
letter, for I could not but feel pleased at the old fellow's
gratitude, even if it were a trifle overdone, and, when all's
said, it was undoubtedly a fault on the right side. I disclaimed
the heroism, and bantered him good-naturedly about the medal,
which, of course, I said I would value tremendously and wear on
appropriate occasions. I wondered at the time what occasion could
be appropriate to decorate one's self with a gold saucer covered
with lies--but, naturally, I didn't go into that to HIM. When you
accept a solid chunk of gold you might as well be handsome about
it, and I piled it on about his being long spared to his family
and to a world that wouldn't know how to get along without him.
Yes, it was a stunning letter, and I've often had the pleasure of
reading it since in a splendid frame below my photograph.
I had been a month or more in New York, and December was already
well advanced before I looked up my Grossenstecks, which I did one
late afternoon as I happened to be passing in their direction. It
was a house of forbidding splendour, on the Fifth Avenue side of
Central Park, and, as I trod its marble halls, I could not but
repeat to myself: "Behold, the grocer's dream!" But I could make
no criticism of my reception by Mrs. Grossensteck and Teresa, whom
I found at home and delighted to see me.
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