I have never known him to vary this general order of work
unless because of illness, or necessary absence.
"Well, Monsieur, last Tuesday--this is Friday--the ambassador was at his
desk as usual. He dictated a dozen or more letters, and had begun
another--a private letter to his sister in Paris. He was well along in
this letter when, without any apparent reason, he rose from his desk and
left the room, closing the door behind him. His stenographer's
impression was that some detail of business had occurred to him, and he
had gone into the general office farther down the hall to attend to it.
I may say, Monsieur, that this impression seemed strengthened by the
fact that he left a fresh cigarette burning in his ash tray, and his pen
was behind his ear. It was all as if he had merely stepped out,
intending to return immediately--the sort of thing, Monsieur, that any
man might have done.
"It so happened that when he went out he left a sentence of his letter
incomplete. I tell you this to show that the impulse to go must have
been a sudden one, yet there was nothing in his manner, so his
stenographer says, to indicate excitement, or any other than his usual
frame of mind.
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