I smiled, but he looked very serious.
“I am weary o' life,” he continued. “I came down to this river to drown myself, but I am unable to do it on account o' my meanness. It's a pity.”
I waited, full of curiosity, while he sat and whittled.
“My life is insured—that's what's the matter,” he went on. “You see, I took out a policy years ago an' paid for it, an' an' ol' buzzard got it for a few dollars that I owed him. If I die the meanest man in the world 'll git a thousand dollars, an' it won't do; come to think it over, I 've got to outlive him if it takes a hundred years.”
He threw his slippered foot over his knee, laughed silently, and shook his head.
“That's one on me,” he remarked. “It ain't decent for me to laugh, but I can't help it.”
“Are you sick?” I asked.
“Not exac'ly sick,” he answered. “When I behave myself I wouldn't know that I had a body if it wasn't for my big toe that keeps peekin' through my shoe leather. Sometimes it makes a bow, very p'lite, an' says, 'Hello, there!'”
He rose and took off his hat. “Look at me—ain't I a gem?” he added.
“I'm sorry for you,” I suggested.