What if my own estimate of the interest of
the stories turned out to be a false one? What if some unforeseen
accident occurred to delay my son's return beyond ten days?
The arrival of the newspaper had already become an event of the
deepest importance to me. Unreasonable as it was to expect any
tidings of George at so early a date, I began, nevertheless, on
this first of our days of suspense, to look for the name of his
ship in the columns of telegraphic news. The mere mechanical act
of looking was some relief to my overstrained feelings, although
I might have known, and did know, that the search, for the
present, could lead to no satisfactory result.
Toward noon I shut myself up with my collection of manuscripts to
revise them for the last time. Our exertions had thus far
produced but six of the necessary ten stories. As they were only,
however, to be read, one by one, on six successive evenings, and
as we could therefore count on plenty of leisure in the daytime,
I was in no fear of our failing to finish the little series.
Of the six completed stories I had written two, and had found a
third in the form of a collection of letters among my papers.
Morgan had only written one, and this solitary contribution of
his had given me more trouble than both my own put together, in
consequence of the perpetual intrusion of my brother's
eccentricities in every part of his narrative.
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