Theophilus North Read Online Free PDF Page B

to tack a copy on the Casino’s bulletin board. He read it and nodded.
    â€œMr. North, it’s early in the season, but we always have young people, home for one reason or another, who need tutoring. Generally, they call on the masters from the nearby schools, but those masters don’t like to give the time as their term-end approaches. You’ll get some of their pupils, I hope. But we have another group that might be eager for your services. Would you be ready to read aloud to older people with poor eyesight?”
    â€œYes, I would, Mr. Wentworth.”
    â€œEverybody calls me ‘Bill.’ I call every man over sixteen ‘Mister.’—Do you play tennis too?”
    â€œNot as well as my brother, of course, but I passed a lot of my boyhood in California and everybody plays it there.”
    â€œDo you think you could coach children between eight and fifteen?”
    â€œI was coached pretty intensively myself.”
    â€œUntil ten-thirty three courts are reserved for children. The professional coach won’t arrive until the middle of June. I’ll start collecting a class for you. One dollar an hour for each youngster. You can ask two dollars an hour for the reading aloud.—Did you bring any tennis gear with you?”
    â€œI can get some.”
    â€œThere’s a room back there filled with the stuff—discarded, lost, forgotten, and so on. I even keep a pile of flannels dry-cleaned so they won’t foul up. Shoes and racquets of all sizes. I’ll take you back there later.—Can you typewrite?”
    â€œYes, Bill, I can.”
    â€œWell, you sit down at this desk here and run up your advertisement for the paper. Better rent a box at the Post Office to receive your mail. Give them the ‘Y’ for phone calls. I’ve got to go and see what my carpenters are doing.”
    Kindness is not uncommon, but imaginative kindness can give a man a shock. I could occasionally be altruistic myself—but as a form of play. It’s easier to give than to receive. I wrote:
    T. THEOPHILUS NORTH
    Yale, 1920. Master at the Raritan School in New Jersey, 1922–1926. Tutoring for school and college examinations in English, French, German, Latin, and Algebra. Mr. North is available for reading aloud in the above languages and in Italian. Terms : two dollars an hour. Address, Newport Post Office Box No.——. Temporary Telephone, Room 41, the Young Men’s Christian Association.
    I ran the advertisement in only three successive issues of the paper.
    Within four days I had pupils on the tennis courts and very enjoyable work it was. (I had played the game without much interest. At the Casino I found some dog-eared manuals. “Improve Your Tennis,” “Tennis for Beginners.” More respected callings than was mine are supported by an element of bluff.) Within a week telephone calls and letters were arriving daily. Among the first of the letters was a summons to be interviewed at “Nine Gables,” an engagement which led to complications related hereafter; another, to read aloud from the works of Edith Wharton to an old lady who had known her when Mrs. Wharton resided in Newport; and others. The responses on the telephone were more varied in character. I learned for the first time that anyone who presents himself to the general public is exposed to contacts with what is too frivolously called “the lunatic fringe.” An angry voice informed me that I was a German spy and that “we have our eyes on you.” A woman urged me to learn and teach Globo and so prepare the world for international and perpetual peace.
    Others were more challenging.
    â€œMr. North? . . . This is Mrs. Denby’s secretary speaking. Mrs. Denby wishes to know if you would be able to read aloud to her children between the hours of three-thirty and six-thirty on Thursday afternoons?”
    I saw at once that this was the governess’s