“Oh, yes, I enjoyed the riding well enough; but I didn’t enjoy hunting for punctures, putting on new tires, or burrowing into the inside of the critter to find out why she didn’t go! And that’s what I was doing most of the time. I never did like machinery. It ain’t in my line.”
He paused a moment, then went on a little wistfully:—
“I suspect, Mr. Smith, there ain’t anything in my line but groceries. It’s all I know. It’s all I ever have known. If—if I had my life to live over again, I’d do different, maybe. I’d see if I couldn’t find out what there was in a picture to make folks stand and stare at it an hour at a time when you could see the whole thing in a minute—and it wa’n’t worth lookin’ at, anyway, even for a minute. And music, too. Now, I like a good tune what is a tune; but them caterwaulings and dirges that that chap Gray plays on that fiddle of his—gorry, Mr. Smith, I’d rather hear the old barn door at home squeak any day. But if I was younger I’d try to learn to like ’em. I would! Look at Flora, now. She can set by the hour in front of that phonygraph of hers, and not know it!”
“Yes, I know,” smiled Mr. Smith.
“And there’s books, too,” resumed the other, still wistfully. “I’d read books—if I could stay awake long enough to do it—and I’d find out what there was in ’em to make a good sensible man like Jim Blaisdell daft over ’em—and Maggie Duff, too. Why, that little woman used to go hungry sometimes, when she was a girl, so she could buy a book she wanted. I know she did. Why, I’d ‘a’ given anything this last year if I could ‘a’ got interested—really interested, readin’. I could ‘a’ killed an awful lot of time that way. But I couldn’t do it. I bought a lot of ’em, too, an’ tried it; but I expect I didn’t begin young enough. I tell ye, Mr. Smith, I’ve about come to the conclusion that there ain’t a thing in the world so hard to kill as time. I’ve tried it, and I know. Why, I got so I couldn’t even kill it eatin’—though I ’most killed myself tryin’ to! An’ let me tell ye another thing. A full stomach ain’t in it with bein’ hungry an’ knowing a good dinner’s coming. Why, there was whole weeks at a time back there that I didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘hungry.’ You’d oughter seen the jolt I give one o’ them waiter-chaps one day when he comes up with his paper and his pencil and asks me what I wanted. ‘Want?’ says I. ‘There ain’t but one thing on this earth I want, and you can’t give it to me. I want to want something. I’m tired of bein’ so blamed satisfied all the time!’”
“And what did—Alphonso say to that?” chuckled Mr. Smith appreciatively.
“Alphonso? Oh, the waiter-fellow, you mean? Oh, he just stared a minute, then mumbled his usual ‘Yes, sir, very good, sir,’ and shoved that confounded printed card of his a little nearer to my nose. But, there! I guess you’ve heard enough of this, Mr. Smith. It’s only that I was trying to tell you why I’m actually glad we lost that money. It’s give me back my man’s job again.”
“Good! All right, then. I won’twaste any more sympathy on you,” laughed Mr. Smith.
“Well, you needn’t. And there’s another thing. I hope it’ll give me back a little of my old faith in my fellow-man.”
“What do you mean by that?”