“Is there any hope of your wife’s recovery?” said I, modestly seeking to turn the conversation.
“Not the least.”
“The children?”
“Very little.”
“It must be a doleful life, then, for all concerned. This lonely solitude—this shanty—hard work—hard times.”
“Haven’t I Trumpet? He’s the cheerer. He crows through all; crows at the darkest: Glory to God in the highest! Continually he crows it.”
“Just the import I first ascribed to his crow, Merrymusk, when first I heard it from my hill. I thought some rich nabob owned some costly Shanghai; little weening any such poor man as you owned this lusty cock of a domestic breed.”
“Poor man like me? Why call me poor? Don’t the cock I own glorify this otherwise inglorious, lean, lantern-jawed land? Didn’t my cock encourage you? And I give you all this glorification away gratis. I am a great philanthropist. I am a rich man—a very rich man, and a very happy one. Crow, Trumpet.”
The roof jarred.
I returned home in a deep mood. I was not wholly at rest concerning the soundness of Merrymusk’s views of things, though full of admiration for him. I was thinking on the matter before my door, when I heard the cock crow again. Enough. Merrymusk is right.