Next day, after work, the Giraffe and I drifted together and down by the river in the cool of the evening, and sat on the edge of the steep, drought-parched bank.
“I heard you saw your lady friends off this morning, Bob,” I said, and was sorry I said it, even before he answered.
“Oh, they ain’t no friends of mine,” he said. “Only four’ poor devils of women. I thought they mightn’t like to stand waitin’ with the crowd on the platform, so I jest offered to get their tickets an’ told ’em to wait round at the back of the station till the bell rung.... An’ what do yer think they did, Harry?” he went on, with an exasperatingly unintelligent grin. “Why, they wanted to kiss me.”
“Did they?”
“Yes. An’ they would have done it, too, if I hadn’t been so long.... Why, I’m blessed if they didn’t kiss me hands.”
“You don’t say so.”
“God’s truth. Somehow I didn’t like to go on the platform with them after that; besides, they was cryin’, and I can’t stand women cryin’. But some of the chaps put them into an empty carriage.” He thought a moment. Then:
“There’s some terrible good-hearted fellers in the world,” he reflected.
I thought so too. “Bob,” I said, “you’re a single man. Why don’t you get married and settle down?”
“Well,” he said, “I ain’t got no wife an’ kids, that’s a fact. But it ain’t my fault.”