"You know Uncle John would find it difficult to disappoint thee."
"I am not a child."
"No," said Reuben, and with nothing in his voice to contradict the word. "What about this afternoon, that is what's left of it?"
"I thought I might see Uncle John at the warehouse. Ride home with him maybe."
"Ay, might be easier—he's a rather different man there at the office."
"It—seems not wrong to you, that I wish to sail?"
Reuben was long silent, drooping, looking into his empty hands. "Ben—'d I ever recount to thee the story of the woodcutter's stupid son who tamed a lion?"
"Woodcutter's son—I don't think so. Is it from Aesop?"
"No. Well, that's nearly the whole tale already. He found it as a cub. They grew up together, played together, the lion learning not to unsheath his claws, the woodcutter's son trying to roar like a lion, but 'tis said he made only some poor squeaking sounds that carried no great distance. They were yet friends when the lion was full grown, but then the poor brute in some manner sickened, fretted, vanishing at whiles and returning unwillingly, until at length the woodcutter's stupid son did arrive at one moment of wisdom, and took his friend into the forest and said to him, 'Go thy way.'"
"I am no lion."