“Exactly,” said Mr. Opp, surprised. “I am most generally considered a long sight younger.”
From matrimony the conversation drifted to oil-wells, then to journalism, and finally to a philosophical discussion of life itself. Mr. Opp got beyond his depth again and again, and at times he became so absorbed that he gave a very poor imitation of himself, and showed [p195] signs of humility that were rarely if ever visible.
Hinton meantime was taking soundings, and sometimes his plummet stopped where it started, and sometimes it dropped to an unexpected depth.
“Well,” he said at last, rising, “we must go to bed. You’ll go on climbing a ladder in the air, and I’ll go on burrowing like a mole in the ground, and what is the good of it all? What chance have either of us for coming out anywhere? You can fool yourself; I can’t: that’s the difference.”
Mr. Opp’s unusual mental exertions had apparently affected his entire body, his legs were tightly wrapped about each other, his arms were locked, and his features were drawn into an amazing pucker of protest.
“That ain’t it,” he said emphatically, struggling valiantly to express his conviction: “this here life business ain’t run on any such small scale as that. According to my notion, or understanding, it’s—well—what you might call, in military [p196] figures, a fight.” He paused a moment and tied himself if possible even into a tighter knot, then proceeded slowly, groping his way: “Of course there’s some that just remains around in camp, afraid to fight and afraid to desert, just sort of indulging in conversation, you might say, about the rest of the army. Then there is the cowards and deserters. But a decent sort of a individual, or rather soldier, carries his orders around with him, and the chief and principal thing he’s got to do is to follow them. What the fight is concerning, or in what manner the general is a-aiming to bring it all correct in the end, ain’t, according to my conclusion, a particle of our business.”
Having arrived at this point of the discussion in a somewhat heated and indignant state, Mr. Opp suddenly remembered his duties as host. With a lordly wave of the hand he dismissed the subject, and conducted Hinton in state to his bed-chamber, where he insisted upon lighting the fire and arranging the bed.
“It was Mr. Opp saying his prayers”