onsideration, "that after Adam an' Eve got bounced out of the gard'n
they kicked themselves as much as anythin' fer not havin' cleaned up the
hull tree while they was about it."

John laughed and said that that was very likely among their regrets.

"Trouble with me was," said David, "that till I was consid'able older 'n
you be I had to scratch grav'l like all possessed, an' it's hard work
now sometimes to git the idee out of my head but what the money's wuth
more 'n the things. I guess," he remarked, looking at the ivory-backed
brushes and the various toilet knick-knacks of cut-glass and silver
which adorned John's bureau, and indicating them with a motion of his
hand, "that up to about now you ben in the habit of figurin' the other
way mostly."

"Too much so, perhaps," said John; "but yet, after all, I don't think I
am sorry. I wouldn't spend the money for those things now, but I am glad
I bought them when I did."

"Jess so, jess so," said David appreciatively. He reached over to the
table and laid his cigar on the edge of a book, and, reaching for his
hip pocket, produced a silver tobacco box, at which he looked
contemplatively for a moment, opening and shutting the lid with a snap.

"There," he said, holding it out on his palm, "I was twenty years makin'
up my mind to buy that box, an' to this day I can't bring myself to
carry it all the time. Yes, sir, I wanted that box fer twenty years. I
don't mean to say that I didn't spend the wuth of it foolishly times
over an' agin, but I couldn't never make up my mind to put that amount
o' money into that pertic'ler thing. I was alwus figurin' that some day
I'd have a silver tobacco box, an' I sometimes think the reason it
seemed so extrav'gant, an' I put it off so long, was because I wanted it
so much. Now I s'pose you couldn't understand that, could ye?"

"Yes," said John, nodding his head thoughtfully, "I think I can
understand it perfectly," and indeed it spoke pages of David's
biography.

"Yes, sir," said David, "I never spent a small amount o' money but one
other time an' got so much value, only I alwus ben kickin' myself to
think I didn't do it sooner."

"Perhaps," suggested John, "you enjoyed it all the more for waiting so
long."

"No," said David, "it wa'n't that--I dunno--'t was the feelin' 't I'd
got there at last, I guess. Fur's waitin' fer things is concerned, the'
is such a thing as waitin' too long. Your appetite 'll change mebbe. I
used to think whe