“Poor fellow,” said I.
“I don’t know about poor fellow,” said he, getting redder.
“Yes. Poor fellow. And poor fellow inasmuch as I suppose in this secluded spot there are none to be had, and so you are prevented from exercising the most privileged and noble of rites.”
“Oh, you’re one of them Social Democrats?”
“Social Democrats?” I echoed.
“Them chaps that go about talkin’ to us of rights, and wrongs too, till we all get mad and discontented—which is pretty well all we ever do get,” he added with a chuckle that was at the same time scornful. And he shut the door.
Filled with the certitude that I had been misunderstood, and that if only he could be made aware that he had one of the aristocracy of the first nation in the world on his step willing to be his guest and that such a chance would never in all human probability occur again he would be too delighted to welcome me, I knocked vigorously.
“Let me in. I am hungry. You do not know who I am,” I called out.
“Well,” said he, opening the door a few inches after a period during which I had continued knocking and he, as I could hear, had moved about the room inside, “here’s a quarter of a pound of butter for you. I ain’t got no more. It’s salt. I ain’t got no fresh. I send it away to the market as soon as it’s made. It’ll be fourpence. Tell your party they can pay when they settle for the field.”
And he thrust a bit of soft and oily butter lying on a piece of paper into my hand and shut the door.