"Did anyone live with him?"
"His hired man," answered the clubman with a smile, looking down the car to where Wilkins sat in solitary grandeur. "And by and by he got so old and so fat that nobody would marry him, while the wives of other men he knew forgot to ask him to dinner."
"Poor dear man!" murmured Abby, "I should think he'd have wished he hadn't been born."
"Sometimes he did," answered the story-teller. "And he longed for some people to really care for him, and for some little children to keep him company."
"Did he have a cow?"
"No, not even a cow."
Abby laughed sleepily.
"But didn't he ever have any fun?"
"He thought he did, but he didn't, really."
"I'm awful sorry for him!" said Abby. "If I met him I would give him my white hen."