"Who were you talkin' to?" he repeated.
"I was just talkin'!" said Pippin. "I admire to talk, don't you?"
The man looked about, to see if any one else were near: then again at Pippin. "You don't look like a drinkin' man!" he said.
"That's because I ain't!" Pippin smiled.
"Nor yet you don't look loony! Yet there you was, footin' it along, and talkin' nineteen to the dozen. Looks queer, to me!"
"Does it? Now I maintain that it's more natural for a man to talk than to keep still."
The man studied Pippin with shrewd, observant eyes. At last, "Like a lift?" he said.
"Thank'ee!" said Pippin, and in another minute they were jogging along the road.
"Nice day!" said the stranger.
"Dandy! Havin' elegant weather right along. Don't know as ever I see better. As I was sayin'," Pippin turned toward his companion, "talkin' is the way of natur', or so I view it. When a man keeps still—well, it may mean one thing and it may mean another. He may be gettin' religion: I never spoke for three days when the Lord was havin' it out with me: but then again it may mean that he's plannin' to get out, or that he's goin' home. Why, I've known men that never stopped talkin', mornin' till night, fear they'd lose their minds if they did; in solitary, they was."