I was still musing upon the incident, when, looking up, I observed my elderly friend making towards me. I rose and laid my hand upon the door-knob. He should not find me unprepared. He smiled, reassuringly, however, and held out his hand.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that maybe I was a little rude just now. I should like, if you will let me, to explain. I think, when you have heard my story, you will understand, and forgive me.”
There was that about him which made me trust him. We found a quiet corner in the smoking-car. I had a “whiskey sour,” and he prescribed for himself a strange thing of his own invention. Then we lighted our cigars, and he talked.
“Thirty years ago,” said he, “I was a young man with a healthy belief in myself, and a desire to do good to others. I did not imagine myself a genius. I did not even consider myself exceptionally brilliant or talented. But it did seem to me, and the more I noted the doings of my fellow-men and women, the more assured did I become of it, that I possessed plain, practical common sense to an unusual and remarkable degree. Conscious of this, I wrote a little book, which I entitled How to be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise, and published it at my own expense. I did not seek for profit. I merely wished to be useful.
“The book did not make the stir that I had anticipated. Some two or three hundred copies went off, and then the sale practically ceased.
“I confess that at first I was disappointed. But after a while, I reflected that, if people would not take my advice, it was more their loss than mine, and I dismissed the matter from my mind.
“One morning, about a twelvemonth afterwards, I was sitting in my study, when the servant entered to say that there was a man downstairs who wanted very much to see me.
“I gave instructions that he should be sent up, and up accordingly he came.
“He was a common man, but he had an open, intelligent countenance, and his manner was most respectful. I motioned him to be seated. He selected a chair, and sat down on the extreme edge of it.
“‘I hope you’ll pard’n this intrusion, sir,’ he began, speaking deliberately, and twirling his hat the while; ‘but I’ve come more’n two hundred miles to see you, sir.’