Yet in those days I confess that I thought far less about these things than I did of the simple joy of being in that workroom where he was. There was a day of rain early in June--of rain so intense and compelling that when lunchtime came I left in the midst of it, while Mr. Ember was out of the room, so that he should not be constrained to ask me to stay. When I came back he scolded me. "You didn't use good sense!" he said. "Why didn't you?" "I used all I had," I replied with meekness. "If that was all you had, you'd lose your job," he grumbled. "Never go out from here again in such a rain as that. Do you hear?" Torchido not yet having returned from his lecture, Mr. Ember built up a cedar fire in the fireplace and made me dry my feet. "I am going to make you a cup of tea," he said, "from some--" "Don't tell me," I said, "that it's from the same kind that the emperor uses?" "It is not," he replied. "This is another form of the same advertisement. This is some which was picked four hundred years ago." "Oh," I said, "I dislike tea more than I can tell you. But I should like to drink a cup of that." The stuff was horrible. It was not strong, but it had an unnameable puckering quality. I tasted it, and waited. "Do you like it?" he asked eagerly. "It is," I said, "the worst tea I have ever tasted in my whole life. I feel as if I had been shirred." He burst into laughter. "So I think," he said, "but lovely ladies drink it down and pretend to like it, just because I tell 'em what it is. I'm glad you hate it." He held the tin over the coals. "Shall I burn it?" he asked. "To the tune of 'What horrid humbugs lovely ladies are'?" "Oh, no," I said, "give it to some old lady who will think it is just tea." He nodded. "You have made the economically correct adjustment," he said. "And that is a good deal of a trick." One morning when I went in, I found him sitting at his table pressing the tips of his fingers to his closed eyes. "Good morning, Miss Wakely," he said. "These two tools of mine are rusting out. It's a nuisance just now, with the proof coming." I said: "Couldn't I read it to you?" "Frankly, I'm afraid not;" he answered. "I belong to the half of mankind who can not be read to. I _think_ that I couldn't bear it. But you may try." He sat in a deep chair, with his back to the light, and I before him, with a little table for the proof. I read to him, doing my best to keep my mind on what I was reading. His bigness, his gentleness, his abstraction, his humor were like a constant speaking presence, even when he was silent. When I had read for ten minutes, he interrupted me.