“What makes you think he is too big for the door?” asked the editor.
“Why, the way he goes on,” said Joe, with the bluntness of youth. “He is always in town talking politics, and he talks bigger than anybody.”
“Well,” said the editor, laughing, “that is his house. When you get a little older you’ll find people who are more disappointing than the high sheriff. Boys are sometimes too big for their breeches, I’ve heard said, but this is the first time I ever heard that a man could be too big for his house. That is a good one on the colonel.”
Ben Bolt trotted along steadily and rapidly, but after a while dusk fell, and then the stars came out. Joe peered ahead, trying to make out the road.
“Just let the horse have his way,” said the editor. “He knows the road better than I do”; and it seemed to be so, for, when heavy clouds from the west came up and hid the stars, and only the darkness was visible, Ben Bolt trotted along as steadily as ever. He splashed through Crooked Creek, walked up the long hill, and then started forward more rapidly than ever.
“It is a level road, now,” the editor remarked, “and Ben Bolt is on the home-stretch.”
In a little while he stopped before a large gate. It was opened in a jiffy by some one who seemed to be waiting.