"Pass that," I said. "I've given up poetry." ("I should have thought that impossible," he put in, in his nasty nagging fashion; but I took no notice.) "Where have you been all the time?"
"Here, mostly. It's not much of a place, but that is its merit."
He was getting too deep now, as he often did of old; so I said, "But it's so far away."
"That's its other merit. You always had a direct and ingenuous mind, Bob. Here you've hit both bull's-eyes in two shots."
"None of your chaff," said I. "Who do you practice your wits on, up here?"
"My dogs. And there are some hens in the neighborhood, and a few small farmers. Or if my bosom cries too loudly to be eased of its perilous stuff, I can chaff myself, which is more profitable."
"You were always too clever for me. What else do you do?"
"As the Baroness used to say in The Danicheffs, in our days of vanity, 'Do you think that is much of a compliment?' I read, and fish, and climb, and ride several hobbies, and meditate on Man, on Nature, and on Human Fate."
"What's the good of that?" I was growing impatient of all this nonsense.
"Well, not much, perhaps," said he. "For you, very little indeed. But intrinsically it is about as profitable as more popular avocations."