"Stevens was always the sort to build upon things to come. He never gave his mind to the day at hand," said he. "For me, I like a man that stands with his feet on the ground and with his eyes on things within common view. I can understand a merchant like that. And with one I can't understand," and the snub-nosed man shook his head, "I'll have no dealings whatever."
"Ah, well," said Mr. Stroude sadly, "you'll have no need to worry about Charles Stevens hereafter, if you've ever done so before."
"What's the news of him now?" asked the portly trader. "What do the doctors say?"
Mr. Stroude inhaled the fumes of his apple-toddy; then he tasted it; finding it to his satisfaction, he set it down.
"King is his physician," he said. "A very able, learned, and ready man. They tell me he has made a study of men's brains and what they are like to do in times when they are much bothered. I've heard it said by those who should know that he had expected what's come about, that he'd been awaiting it these months past. Ah!" shaking his head in vast admiration, "science is a wonderful thing. The rest of us could go our ways days without end and never expect the half of that."
The snub-nosed man seemed not convinced.
"I've heard men say years ago that they thought Charles Stevens mad," he said. "And, for my part, I never gain-said them; for his ways of looking at things, or doing them, were not customary."
The portly trader cleared his throat, and the sound was plainly one of dissent.
"You may say what you like," spoke he, "but you'll never get public sanction for clapping a man into a madhouse because he's different from his neighbors. For," and he shook a thick forefinger, "if the world were filled with only people who thought in the customary way, and went their ways as others do, how should we go forward, I'd like to know?"
"I have heard it reasoned that way before," said the snub-nosed man stubbornly. "Nevertheless, I am for ways that I understand. There's the nephew, now; he's the kind of man for my liking, a straight-forward, open-dealing young chap. A body can make something of him."