Читать книгу Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences онлайн

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I was soon to discover that Harris, like all the men of ssss1 genius I have met, is vain. I do not mean that he overrates his gifts: he does not; nor that his recognition of his own genius is offensively insistent: such is very far from being the case. I mean that he is inordinately proud, innocently and childlikely proud, of things that are not of the least consequence. At supper in the French Restaurant the head waiter slipped noiselessly across to the table at which Harris, Kahane and I were sitting. (Harris is the kind of man who acts as a magnet to all head waiters—a high tribute to his dominating personality.) When our orders had been given the waiter, turning to go, said: “Very good, MrHarris.” On the instant Harris looked up. “So you know me?” he asked. “Yes, sir. I have had the pleasure of waiting on you in Monte Carlo and, if I am not mistaken, in New York as well.” It is difficult to describe the naïve pleasure Harris took in this: it stamped him at once as a man of the world—he who, of all people, required, in our opinion, no such stamp.