His despondency led to reminiscence. "Seems to me folks ain't so lively as when I was a boy. The town's runnin' down."
He stood in his shirt-sleeves, though there was a bleakness in the wind that hinted of December. The bare branches of the maples creaked, and the dead leaves fled up the road in a whirl of dust.
It was late in December when Thaddeus came to Hagar again, a Hagar of gray, frozen roads, little patches of dry, drifted snow, and nights falling early. Mr. Paulus sat by a lamp in the rear of the half-lit store, out of sorts with rheumatism and by reason of human nature. It was five o'clock. Thaddeus entered with an air of happy secrecy, planted himself, white-skinned, wrinkled, smiling, before Mr. Paulus's red-and-round-faced gloom.
"Pete, I've been to see Gerald Map. Upon my word! Singular interview, which I shall not tell you anything about."
"Ain't no need," grumbled Mr. Paulus. "Been agreein' on your epitaphs, an' it's about time. Like to make epitaphs for all the danged fools in town myself, an' fit the corpses to the dates."
Thaddeus sat down carefully, and wiped his glasses with snowy handkerchief, leaning forward to the light; adjusted them, leaned back, and rubbed his hands softly.
"Pete, when you've made up your mind about something, it's a satisfaction to happen on—a—unexpectedly—a moral justification of it. It really is."