Bunker Bean

'Bunker Bean' is a comedy-genre novel written by Harry Leon Wilson. Its main character is Bunker Bean, a man who was often dissatisfied with his life and wishes he could be different. At one point, this discontent with himself was suffered in a moment of idleness as he sat at a desk on a high floor of a very high office-building in «downtown» New York. The first correction he would have made was that he should be «well over six feet» tall. He had observed that this was the accepted stature for a hero. A certain insignificant Bunker Bean was not like this. With a soul aspiring to stripes and checks that should make him a man to be looked at twice in a city street, he lacked courage for any but the quietest patterns. Longing for the cravat of brilliant hue, he ate out his heart under neutral tints. Had he not, in the intoxication of his first free afternoon in New York, boldly purchased a glorious thing of silk entirely, flatly red, an article to stamp its wearer with distinction; and had he not, in the seclusion of his rented room, that night hidden the flaming thing at the bottom of a bottom drawer, knowing in his sickened soul he dared not flaunt it?