The Chinese Doll

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But now I can’t eat anything.

When this big stranger walked in I stared at him in a professional, disinterested sort of way and was reminded of your Uncle Jeff living out in Utah. This man looked a good deal like your uncle except that he was barrel-chested and powerful where Uncle Jeff was a run-down, weazened little squirt. It would require two and a half Uncle Jeffs to fill the man’s shoes and there would still be enough left over to make a caricature.

You know the type; you undoubtedly meet men like him in your business. He was large in girth and latent power, large in pocketbook potential, perhaps, and large in ideas of how he wanted the world to revolve about him. If you or any other newspaper reporter met him you’d label him a capitalist, or maybe a powerful lobbyist-something like that. But I didn’t think so.

He made my office seem small by merely standing there in the doorway. In that first, cursory glance at him I noticed that, and took my feet off the desk. And then I looked again.

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