We arrived at the house in which I lived.I would not ask him to come in with me,but walked up the stairs without a word.He followed me,and entered the apartment on my heels.He had not been in it before,but he never gave a glance at the room I had been at pains to make pleasing to the eye.There was a tin of tobacco on the table,and,taking out his pipe,he filled it.He sat down on the only chair that had no arms and tilted himself on the back legs.
‘If youre going to make yourself at home,why dont you sit in an armchair?’I asked irritably.
‘Why are you concerned about my comfort?’
‘Im not,’I retorted,‘but only about my own.It makes me uncomfortable to see someone sit on an uncomfortable chair.’
He chuckled,but did not move.He smoked on in silence,taking no further notice of me,and apparently was absorbed in thought.I wondered why he had come.
Until long habit has blunted the sensibility,there is something disconcerting to the writer in the instinct which causes him to take an interest in the singularities of human nature so abs......