We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Day of the
by RICHARD E. GLENDINNING
Vear
There is a tide in the affairs of man, « Hunter was forced to confess.
i'VX /"ELL, it's working into spring VV again," Hunter said, turning horn, the window which overlooked he avenue, "and I'm a Httle sorry to ee it. It means I'll have to be doing lomething about my height."
Hunter was one of the club's dullest :onversationalists but there was no )ne else to talk to in the reading room :nd I had grown weary of watching he pretty girls who passed the win' low. "Your height, you were sayng?"
"Yes, Smithfield, my height." He ank into the leather chair next to nine. "It has something to do with pring and summer. As the days grow 3nger, I grow shorter."
"Same thing happens every year,
suppose?"
"I never paid much attention to it intil about five years ago."
"Stand up and let's have a look at ou." He stood in front of me and I tudied him carefully. He looked the ime as always to me. Hunter never ad worn a cutaway with any particuir flair and it always seemed a bit aggy. "I don't notice anything."
He sat down again. "It's too early a the season. In any case, it's a ither subtle thing. Even my best riends don't see it. My wife doesn't, ither."
I remained silent for a moment, stening to the scrape of a checker
moved slowly across a board in the game room. "How does this thing affect you?"
"I don't feel anything, if that's what you mean, but it's a bother. Suits and shirts, you know. They get a little floppy."
"And during the fall and winter?"
"Nothing to worry about then," Hunter assured me. "I'm the same height as I would expect. But spring and summer are unnerving. I tell you, Smithfield, I don't know which way to turn!"
"How much do you lose, generally speaking?"
"Only the smallest part of an inch each day. I suppose that on the longest day of the year I haven't lost more than an inch all told. But that's something to reckon with, let me tell you."
"At our age," I said, knowing full well that Hunter was at least three years my senior, "a man can ill afford to lose an inch."
"The first time it came to my attention, it was too late to do anything about it."
"Too late?"
"Rather. The days had reached their turning point and were already growing shorter. By the time I got around to seeing my doctor — you know how a man of 65 keeps putting it off — I was practically my normal height."
"I gather he prescribed something. I mean, doctors usually do."