"I told you what was hid in that boy."
"Off to the fair, I see."
"Yes, faith. Not many more junkettings in store for me. And, finding the day so brave, I felt up for anything. Josh Peatheyjohns is going to give me a lift from his corner."
"And what do you get out of this racket and noise, and crush of beasts and humans?" asked Jacob.
Billy laughed.
"What do I get out of it? Well, I get pleasure out of it—an old man's pleasure. First there's the pleasure of following custom and doing, yet again, what I've done more than fifty years already. And to be well enough to go at all is a pleasure in itself. Then there's the old faces and funny customers I've known when we were boys—a good few yet. And then there's the sight of the young; because if you can't have a good time yourself, the next best thing is to see somebody else having a good time. And to watch the young enjoying themselves and doing all the same things we did, brings back the past in a cheerful sort of way."
"I'm answered, then," replied Jacob, "and it's a good advertisement for your pleasures, Billy, that you can live them over again in others. When I'm old, there will be nothing like that for me."
"You're too old for your age as it is," answered the elder. "There's nought makes a man grow old before his time like brooding and over-much thought. Solitude throws you in on your own nature, Jacob, and a man's own nature ain't always the best company for him."
"That's true enough."
"On an annual great day like this, nobody did ought to turn his back on his neighbours, but go amongst 'em in a spirit of good-will and charity. A gathering of jolly souls is good for the heart, because you're drove out of yourself, and hear other opinions, and rub off the rust of the mind."