"That," said the Idiot, "is not an objection, but a virtue; for what other lesson," he added, with a glance of pride at his surroundings, "what other lesson, my dear Poet, should a home try to teach, and what other sentiment can mean so much to mankind?"
"I don't know," said the Poet, with a little sigh. "I haven't ever had a home; I've always boarded."
Whereupon the Idiot rose up from his chair, and putting his arm about his friend's shoulder, said:
"How you do talk! Never had a home? Why, my dear fellow, what's this? It's yours as long as it's mine!"
[VIII]
SOME CONSIDERATION OF THE HIRED MAN
"Who is that sitting down on your tennis-court, Mr. Idiot?" asked Mr. Brief, the lawyer. "Or is it anybody? I've been trying for the last half-hour to make out whether it's a man or one of those iron figures with which some people decorate their lawns."
"That," replied the Idiot, calmly, "is my hired man. I pay him forty dollars a month to sit down there and let the grass grow under his feet. I heard you and Mr. Pedagog discussing the wonderful grassiness of my lawn after dinner last night, and I meant to have told you then that the credit thereof belongs entirely to the restful nature of that man's soul. He will stand for hours rooted to one spot and looking with apparent aimlessness out over the river. To most people this would seem to be prompted by a sheer indisposition to work, but this would do him a rank injustice, for his immovability is due entirely to his system. He is letting the grass grow beneath him, and the fact that our grass is so nourishing everywhere is due to his having stood for hours at various times over every square inch of territory to which I hold the title-deeds."
The Idiot gazed out of the window at his retainer with affectionate admiration.
"He certainly clings closely to his system," said the lawyer.