e ought to
thank me for the chance."

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

Why Mrs Grove thought Mr Green might need an opening for anything he
had to say to Mr Snow did not appear, as he did not avail himself of
it. It was Mr Snow who spoke first, after a short silence.

"Going to give up business and settle down. Eh?"

"I have thought of it. I don't believe I should enjoy life half as well
if I did, however."

"How much do you enjoy it now?" inquired Mr Snow.

"Well, not a great deal, that is a fact; but as well as folks generally
do, I reckon. But, after all, I do believe to keep hard to work is
about as good a way as any to take comfort in the world."

Mr Green took a many-bladed knife from his pocket, and plucking a twig
from the root of a young cedar, began fashioning it into an instrument
slender and smooth.

"That is about the conclusion I have come to," repeated he; "and I
expect I will have to keep to work if I mean to get the good of life."

"There are a good many kinds of work to be done in the world," suggested
Mr Snow.

Mr Green gave him a glance curious and inquiring.

"Well, I suppose there are a good many ways of working in the world, but
it all comes to the same thing pretty much, I guess. Folks work to get
a living, and then to accumulate property. Some do it in a large way,
and some in a small way, but the end is the same."

"Suppose you should go to work to spend your money now?" suggested Mr
Snow, again.

"Well, I've done a little in that way, too, and I have about come to the
conclusion that that don't pay as well as the making of it, as far as
the comfort it gives. I ain't a very rich man, not near so rich as
folks think; but I had got a kind of sick of doing the same thing all
the time, and so I thought I would try something else a spell. So I
rather drew up, though I ain't out of business yet, by a great deal. I
thought I would try and see if I could make a home, so I built. But a
house ain't a home--not by a great sight. I have got as handsome a
place as anybody need wish to have, but I would rather live in a hotel
any day than have the bother of it. I don't more than half believe I
shall ever live there long at a time."

He paused, and whittled with great earnestness.

"It seems a kind of aggravating, now, don't it, when a man has worked
hard half his life and more to make property, that he shouldn't be able
to enjoy it when he has got it."

"What do you suppose is the r