see old Gibbs and talk to him. Tell him you’re sorry for all the trouble you made and the damage you did, and that you’re willing to pay whatever he says is fair. Then let him rave. He’s a sour old devil and he’ll bawl you out, but let him rave. He enjoys it. Then tell him if he’ll let you stay, you’ll never act like this again. And if I can help out any, I’ll do it.”
He agreed to this at once, and Eugene left him and went to his own room: when he went downstairs a few minutes later on his way to his first-class, Robert was standing at the desk, submissively attentive to the tongue-lashing Gibbs was giving him. The little man was in a state of trembling denunciation, he squinted and peered at Robert’s face, and wagged an indignant finger at him; his shrewd, sour, nasal voice carried to all parts of the room, and Robert listened apologetically and sorrowfully, putting in a word of penitent assent from time to time, in a deep, respectful voice:
“I quite agree with you…. You are absolutely right, sir…. It was a terrible thing to do…. I’ll never do it again as long as I live… I’ll pay you for every bit of damage that I did”—and he took out his cheque-book and opened it upon the counter. Eugene went over and joined them: the old man was beginning to simmer down somewhat into occasional howls and blasts of fury, like a hurricane which has spent its fiercest violence and is in process of abatement: Robert began to talk smoothly, entreatingly, and charmingly—he swore to a complete and abject repentance, spoke touchingly and mysteriously of great storms and tragedies in his recent life which had driven him to this mad and violent explosion, and gave his solemn oath never to repeat the experience again if he was only allowed to remain in the hotel: Eugene put in a word of agreement here and there when he thought it might help—the upshot of it was that Gibbs finally began to speak to Robert in a tone of almost paternal affection, a kind of radiance was given off from his meagre soul, he bent towards Robert intimately, he even laughed—and when they departed, to their astonishment, he even gave the repentant sinner a warm squeeze of the hand and a friendly pat upon the shoulder.
Within a period of three furious months Robert made trips to Colorado seven times: he got on trains and was hurled 2000 miles across the continent as casually as a man would make the subway trip from Times Square to Brooklyn Heights. Sometimes he would leave New York
