r,
and return when it pleased him. "He do be growing terrible
absent-minded," his wife would often say in these latter days. "I'm
a'most afraid sometimes as he may be took in a fit." But in the old
quarry he was another man. The open spaces of the sky seemed to bring
him to himself.

Many a time on a summer day I have watched Mrs. Abel's horse bearing its
rider up the steep slope that led to the quarry, and more than once have
I gone thither myself only to find that she had forestalled my hopes of
an interview. "Snarley Bob," she used to say to me, with a frank
disregard for my own feelings--"Snarley Bob is the one man in the world
whom I have found worth talking to."

The feature in Snarley's appearance that no one could fail to see, or,
having seen, forget, was the extraordinary width between the eyes. It
was commonly said that he had the power of seeing people behind his
back. And so doubtless he had, but the thing was no miracle. It was a
consequence of the position of his eyes, which, like those of a horse,
were as much at the side of his head as they were in front.

Snarley's manner of speech was peculiar. Hoarse and hesitating at first,
as though the physical act were difficult, and rising now and then into
the characteristic snarl, his voice would presently sink into a deep and
resonant note and flow freely onward in a tone of subdued emphasis that
was exceedingly impressive. Holding, as he did, that words are among the
least important things of life, Snarley was nevertheless the master of
an unforced manner of utterance more convincing by its quiet
indifference to effect than all the preternatural pomposities of the
pulpit and the high-pitched logic of the schools. I have often thought
that any Cause or Doctrine which could get itself expressed in Snarley's
tones would be in a fair way to conquer the world. Fortunately for the
world, however, it is not every Cause, nor every Doctrine, which would
lend itself to expression in that manner.

Seated on a heap of broken road metal, with a doubled sack between his
person and the stones, and with his short pipe stuck out at right angles
to his profile, so that he could see what was going on in the bowl,
Snarley Bob discoursed, at intervals, as follows:

"Yes, sir, there's things about the stars that fair knocks you silly to
think on. And, what's more, you can't think on 'em, leastways to no good
purpose, until they _have_ knocked you silly. Why, what's the good o