“How are you?” said I.
“How are you?” said he.
I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind.
“Fine day,” said I.
“You bet,” said he.
He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing.
“Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?” I asked.
He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest.
“No, did you?”
“Or Bob Fitzsimmons?”