t you must be a man worth knowing."

"Then I must be rare," said Milford.

"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not
belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that
brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of
infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?"

"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast."

"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were
strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull
rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not,
indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain
would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts."

"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time."

"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?"

"I've broken out there in spots."

"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school.
Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to
break out in a spot called Grayson?"

"I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else."

"You did? That was my town, sir--a seat of learning made famous by a
bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the
celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?"

"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book."

"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be
worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but
with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good
thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I
think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife.
She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my
decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man
possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what
part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?"

"Mostly between here and sunset."

"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May
I trouble you for a drink of water?"

Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the
kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with
the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently
watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw
it out upon t