When John told his friend Thaddeus he was going to work in the mill Thaddeus rolled his tongue in a very droll way.
“You seem surprised.”
“Ain’t,” said Thaddeus. “Ain’t. Can’t tell when I’m surprised.”
That was all he would say.
Everybody who knew the past was astonished. It was supposed that the young man did not know what he was doing. A very old citizen of Quality Street, with a glass eye that gave him a furtive, untrustworthy appearance, came to visit Aaron’s son on the hotel veranda and approached the subject by stalking it. He was not a presumptuous person. Never had he meddled in the affairs of others, though he would say that if he had it would have been more often to their advantage than prejudice. This matter of which he was making at his time of life an exception, a precedent in a sense, was nobody’s business of course. Still, in another way it was. There had been a great deal of talk about it. Nobody wished to take it upon himself to speak out. That could be understood. There were so many things to think of. Feelings of great delicacy were involved. Still what a pity, he said—what a pity for any of these reasons to withhold from Aaron’s son information he would not come by for himself until it was perhaps too late.
“I must be very stupid,” said John at one of the significant pauses. “You are evidently trying to tell me something.”
“You are going to work in the mill?” said the old citizen.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what happens to Enoch Gib’s young men?”
He did not know. The old citizen told him. When he was through Aaron’s son thanked him and made no comment. After that people said he knew what he was doing. Some said he had a subtle design.