Explore "Red and Black" by Grece S. Richmond on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Robert Black was dressing for the day. This procedure, simple and commonplace enough in the schedule of the ordinary man, was for him usually a somewhat complicated process. The reason for this was that he was apt to be, as to-day, attempting at the same time to finish the reading from some left-over chapter of the book he had been devouring the last thing before he went to bed. Of course he could neither take his cold tub nor shave his always darkening chin while perusing the latest addition to his rapidly growing library. But the moment these activities were over, he could and did don his attire for the day while engaged in scanning the printed page propped upon the chest of drawers before him.
The result of this economy of time was that he seldom actually heard the bell ring to summon him to his breakfast, and was accustomed to appear in the dining-room doorway, book in one hand, morning paper just gathered in from the doorstep in the other, and to find there Mrs. Hodder awaiting him in a grieved silence. He would then offer her a smiling apology, upon which she would shake her head over the incomprehensible ways of men who thought more of the feeding of brains than body, and proceed devotedly to serve him with food kept hot for his coming.