He rose and put on his hat.
“Now, suppose I've rung the bell an' Mrs. Smith opens the door. I bow so, and say: 'Good-morning, madam,' or 'Good-afternoon, madam. Would you like to engage a servant who will work for you at half a cent a day and board herself? I have one of the name of Sal. Sal cleans woodwork, silver, and all kinds of metal, and never complains.'
“I don't talk as much as I used to. Some way it don't sound honest, and I find out that gentlemen are not apt to be gabby. I try to please and show that I want to earn an honest living, and I get along.
“Ye see, the children like me because I like them, and everybody is glad to see me when I come around. The other day a woman asked me to mind her children while she went of an errand. It would have tickled you to see how they piled on me.”
He sat in a chair and laughed, and put his wooden leg on the bed, and pulled a grip and two pillows into his lap, and flung the bolster over his leg.
“There, that's about the way I looked,” he went on, with a laugh. “I made faces for 'em and told 'em how I lost my leg, and we had a grand time of it. It's the same way with grownup folks. If you want them to like you, you've got to like them. A gentleman never speaks badly of any one; that's another thing I've learnt.”
“I'm not a gentleman, then,” I answered.
“Why?”
“There's one man about whom I couldn't say anything mean enough.”
“Well, if you owe him a thrashing, wait until you can pay him off proper. You can't do it with your tongue.”