Haldane found the cushioned armchair and the genial fire exceedingly to his taste, and he felt that in such comfortable quarters he could endure hearing the old man berate himself or any one else for an hour or more.
"Where are you goin' to sleep to-night?" asked his quaint-visaged host.
"That is a problem I had been considering myself," answered Haldane, dubiously. "I had about concluded that, rather than walk back through the rain to the wretched place at which I slept last night, I would ask for the privilege of sleeping in your wood-shed. It wouldn't be much worse than the other place, or any place in which I could find lodging if I were known. Since I did not steal your silver I suppose you can trust me with your wood."
"Yet they say your folks is rich."
"Yes, I can go to as elegant a house as there is in this city."
"Why in thunder don't you go there, then?"
"Because I would rather be in your wood-shed and other places like it for the present."
"I can't understand that."
"Perhaps not, but there are worse things than sleeping hard and cold.
There are people who suffer more through their minds than their bodies.
I am not going back among my former acquaintances till I can go as a
gentleman."
The old man looked at him approvingly a moment, and then said sententiously: