"Why, you never axed me as I remember," growled the fellow.
Slipping my knapsack from my shoulders, I sat down at a small table in a corner while the man, with a final kick at the fire, went to give my order. In a few minutes he reappeared with some billets of wood beneath his arm, and followed by a merry-eyed, rosy-cheeked lass, who proceeded, very deftly, to lay a snowy cloth and thereupon in due season, a dish of savory ham and golden-yolked eggs.
"It's a lovely morning!" said I, lifting my eyes to her comely face.
"It is indeed, sir," said she, setting down the cruet with a turn of her slender wrist.
"Which I make so bold as to deny," said the surly man, dropping the wood on the hearth with a prodigious clatter, "'ow can any morning be lovely when there ain't no love in it—no, not so much as would fill a thimble? I say it ain't a lovely morning, not by no manner o' means, and what I says I ain't ashamed on, being a nat'rally truthful man!" With which words he sighed, kicked the fire again, and stumped out.
"Our friend would seem somewhat gloomy this morning," said I.
"He've been that way a fortnight now, come Satu'day," replied the slim lass, nodding.
"Oh?" said I.
"Yes," she continued, checking a smile, and sighing instead; "it's very sad, he've been crossed in love you see, sir."
"Poor fellow!" said I, "can't you try to console him?"