I couldn’t recall starting when I did this every working day during my tenure at New York office.  Every morning around 8:45 as I dismounted from subway tram, I had to walk about three minute through the underground arcade to reach the entrance of one of the Rockefeller Center Buildings where my office was located.  Near the staircase to the portal of the building, there was a self-service café, carrying coffee, of course, and a variety of fast foods for convenient breakfast: bagels, muffins, cakes, donuts, loaves etc.  A lot of typical office persons, men in suit and with portfolio, usually carrying a New York Times underarm; and ladies in dress and with handbag, were busy picking what they needed for the beginning of the day, and queued up for checking-out.    

Based on the belief that “food from stores bustling with guests must be good” and tried to make myself look more like a New Yorker, I started to join the scramble every day.  A cup of coffee was essential for every customer, and I was no exception though I was not particularly in fond of drinking it.  Instead of using a sleeve to protect my hand from the heat, I used two cups, one overlaying another, to contain the burning black liquid.  I would also take a slightly warm bagel, raisin-flavored or a plain one with margarine.  Because of several minutes’ delay in the shop, I had to hasten my steps to the office.  Usually before entering into the office, I would have had the bagel gulped down, so as to maintain a good image of myself.

When I sat right in front of desk I began to sip the coffee before it had been cooling down.  I was not the kind of guy that “can’t do a thing until I’ve had my first cup of coffee”; the reason I was in a little hurry not only because I need it to help digest the bagel I’d just swallowed, but also because I needed that clean, unused cup to serve other purpose: make my tea.  No kidding, I am really the guy who “can’t do a thing until I’ve had my first cup of tea.”  So when I finished drinking the coffee, again I overlaid one cup over the other, but exchanged their position.  Coffee-stained one was serving as sleeve, and the clean one as the cup for tea.  By degrees this had become a force of habit to start my office life every working day until we moved from 5^th Avenue to 3^rd Avenue, the time almost simultaneously when I was transferred back to head office.