He found it
affected his hearing. Coffee, too, he refused. It affected,
so it seemed, his sense of smell. He sat beside us, ill
at ease, and anxious, as I could see, to get back to his
second daughter and her schoolmistresses. Mr. Sims, who
is geniality itself in his heart, but has no great powers
in conversation, would ask Tommy if he remembered how he
acted as Antigone in the college play, and was "plastered"
from the second act on. Mr. Vidal had no recollection of
it, but wondered if there was any good book-store in town
where he could buy his daughter an Algebra. He rose when
he decently could and left us. As Mr. Sims saw it, he
"blew out."
Mr. Sims is kindliness itself in his judgments. He passed
no word of censure on his departed friend. But a week or
so later he mentioned to me in conversation that Tommy
Vidal had "turned into a kind of stiff." The vocabulary
of Mr. Sims holds no term of deeper condemnation than
the word "stiff." To be a "stiff" is the last form of
degradation.
It is strange that when a thing happens once, it forthwith
happens twice or even more. For years no member of the
"old gang" had come in touch with Mr. Sims. Yet the visit
of Tommy Vidal was followed at no great distance of time
by the "blowing in" of Ned Purvis.
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