Martin Eden / Мартин Иден

Drawing out some books at the desk, and while the man was stamping the cards, Martin blurted out:-

“Say, there’s something I’d like to ask you.”

The man smiled and paid attention.

“When you meet a young lady an’ she asks you to call, how soon can you call?”

Martin felt his shirt press and cling to his shoulders, what of the sweat of the effort.

“Why I’d say any time,” the man answered.

“Yes, but this is different,” Martin objected. “She – I – well, you see, it’s this way: maybe she won’t be there.

“Then call again.”

“What I said ain’t what I meant,” Martin confessed falteringly, while he made up his mind to throw himself wholly upon the other’s mercy. “I’m just a rough sort of a fellow, an’ I ain’t never seen anything of society. This girl is all that I ain’t, an’ I ain’t anything that she is. You don’t think I’m playin’ the fool, do you?” he demanded abruptly.

“No, no; not at all, I assure you,” the other protested.

Martin looked at him admiringly.

“If I could tear it off that way, I’d be all right,” he said.

“I beg pardon?”

“I mean if I could talk easy that way, an’ polite, an’ all the rest.”

“Oh,” said the other, with comprehension.

“What is the best time to call? The afternoon?—not too close to meal-time? Or the evening? Or Sunday?”

“I’ll tell you,” the librarian said with a brightening face.

“I’ll do it,” he said, picking up his books and starting away.

He turned back and asked:

“When you’re speakin’ to a young lady – say, for instance, Miss Lizzie Smith – do you say �Miss Lizzie’? or �Miss Smith’?”

“Say �Miss Smith,’” the librarian stated authoritatively.

So it was that Martin Eden solved the problem.

“Come down any time; I’ll be at home all afternoon,” was Ruth’s reply over the telephone to his stammered request as to when he could return the borrowed books.

She met him at the door herself, and her woman’s eyes took in immediately the creased trousers and the certain slight but indefinable change in him for the better.