Page:Frenzied Fiction.djvu/108

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.


Frenzied Fiction

could examine him he no longer looked so big. In fact he was not big at all. The effect of size must have come, I think, from the great wolfskin that he wore. I have noticed the same thing in Grand Opera. I noticed, too, for the first time that the cave we were in seemed fitted up, in a rude sort of way, like a dwelling-room.

“This is a nice place you’ve got,” I said.

“Dandy, isn’t it?” he said, as he cast his eyes around. “She fixed it up. She’s got great taste. See that mud sideboard? That’s the real thing, A-one mud! None of your cheap rock about that. We fetched that mud for two miles to make that. And look at that wicker bucket. Isn’t it great? Hardly leaks at all except through the sides, and perhaps a little through the bottom. She wove that. She’s a humdinger at weaving.”

He was moving about as he spoke, showing me all his little belongings. He reminded me for all the world of a man in a Harlem flat, showing a visitor how convenient it all is. Somehow, too, the Cave-man had lost all appearance of size. He looked, in fact, quite little, and when he had pushed his long hair back from his forehead he seemed to wear that same, worried, apologetic look that we all have. To a higher being, if there is such,

96