h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Snob

It was at the book counter in the department store that Jone Harcourt the student caught a glimpse of his father. At first he could not be sure in the crowd that pushed along the aisle but there was something about the color of the back of the elderly man’s neck something about the faded felt hat that he knew very well. Harcourt was standing with the girl he loved. Buying a book for her. All afternoon he had been talking to her. Eagerly but with a anxious diffidence as if there still remind in him an innocent wonder that she should be delighted to be with him from underneath her wide-brimmed straw had her face so fair and beautifully strong with its expression of cool independence kept turning up to him and sometimes smiled at what he said. That was the way they always talked never the daring to show much full strong feeling Harcourt had just bought the book and had reached in to his pocket for the money with a free ready gesture to make it appear that he was accustomed to buying books for young ladies. When the white haired man in the faded felt hat at the other end of the counter, turned half toward him. And Harcourt knew he was standing only a few feet away from his father.