MARIANNE MOORE
607
ly
must
tell him," he said. I offered to go (having monopolized Mr. Kerfoot
anyhow unduly) but he wouldn't hear to it. "Sit still" he said-"don't
move." Afterwhile Mr. Kerfoot came back and said he must go and shook
hands and said, "I hope I'll meet you again." Mterwhile he drifted in a
third time, for his hat I think. I said I had just been reading his impression
of 291 and I thought "that was about the way it made you feel." He looked
pleased and said goodby. He surely is a crackerjack.
Thursday afternoon the Cowdrays left. Zaroubi and I talked as we
went back through the station, I to go to Bruno's (Garret), she to school.
I took the Stage, to that gentleman's abode, only to find him out. His gar–
ret is over a drugstore on Washington Square. The drug clerk said I might
find him at 10 Fifth Avenue. I walked down there into an imposing
vestibule-basement entrance where there was a directory of names and
entered a marble-lined elevator-equipped place and ascended 4 flights to
Mr. Bruno's office. In one room was a cutting table piled with letter copy.
File-cases stood about I think and a neat stenographer had been writing to
beat the band prior to my entrance.
Mr.
Bruno came out and invited me
in, to the inner lair, sat down on a light yellow folding chair with his back
to the window a table in front of him and offered me another on the other
side of the table facing him. He had just been shopping and had a pile of
about 10 books on the floor beside him, Granville-Barker on Gordon
Craig and others. He is, himself, tall and pallid with straight, colorless hair,
he smiles brightly and slowly with great reserve power. He wore a black
and white checked serge suit and as I said to Alfred, the white checks
seemed to dance allover him. I said "I came to see if you have
'Mushrooms'Mr. Bruno. I have just been to your garret and couldn't get
in, and the clerk in the drugstore told me to come here." "Real ones?" he
said. "The only ones" I said "that I should be sorry to find you hadn't got."
He said "I haven't here, but if you have a few minutes to spare, (you can
spare 10 minutes?) I shall be through with my work and I shall go back
with you." I thanked him and picked up a pamphlet. 1 said "Mr. Bruno
you have printed work in
[Bruno's}
Weekly
by L.S. or S.L. drawings like
Egyptian hieroglyphics that 1 admire very much. 1 have wondered who did
them. They are very sound." "They are good" he said. "They are done by
a German living in Switzerland" and he didn't tell me anymore. "Perhaps
you can find something here" he said reaching me a pile of chapbooks and
pamphlets. "Look through them." We continued to talk and he didn't seem
to be getting any work done. Presently I said "I am hindering you Mr.
Bruno, perhaps 1 had better go. Would it suit you better to have me come
again?" "Not at all" he said, "why 1 am taking you
with
me!" Then he said,
"How did you know about me? How did you find me?" I said 1 had seen
advertisements of
[Bruno's}
Weekly
and that Mr. Kreymborg had told me
