"I'm sorry," said Ging, "but I don't believe I can get off this afternoon. Clarm's being out of town puts double work on me. But we'll go round to-night. You've been here quite often, I suppose."
"Well, not lately," I replied.
"No? Then we can find a good many things to interest you."
I went out again and walked about, but I did not venture far beyond the shadow of the Rookery, for I knew that should I get turned round I would be ashamed to inquire the way back. I saw a man standing on a box selling pens. He had a most fluent use of words, though I could see that he was not educated. He interested his hearers with humorous stories, as if his business were first to entertain the public and then to pick up a living, and for the first time it struck me that book-knowledge did not embrace everything, that people who simply read get but a second-hand experience. We must observe form and recognize the rules which good taste has drawn, but after all the finest form and the most nearly perfect rule is an inborn judgment. The merest accident may thrill a dull man with genius. I knew a young man who was commonplace until he was taken down with a fever, and when he got up his business sense was gone, but he wrote a parody that made this country shout with laughter. Thus I mused as I looked at that fellow selling pens. He was a rascal, no doubt, but I was forced to admire his vivid fancy, his genius.
When I returned to the Rookery I found Ging waiting for me. "Now," said he, "we'll go out for a while and then eat dinner. Would you mind going out about twelve miles? Train every few minutes. I've got some real estate that I'd like to show you—might cut an important figure in our transaction."
"I don't want it to cut any figure in our transaction," I replied. "I want to sell the mine for money."
"Yes, of course, but you might double your money on the real estate."
"That may be true, but I am not a speculator; and if you are not prepared to pay money, why, it is useless to waste further time."
"Of course. No time has been wasted and none shall be. You may trust me when it comes to the question of wasting time. I didn't know but you might like a home out at Sweet Myrtle. Beautiful place—gas, water, side-walks, sewers. But if you don't want to go, it's all right. Let me tell you right now that we are prepared to pay cash for your mine. We represent millions in the East. Well, we'll go."
That night we went to a theater, and to me Mr. Ging was a dull companion. He yawned and stretched through Shakspeare's mighty play, while I was in a tingling ecstasy. He said that the fellow could not act, and that may have been true, but to me there was no actor, but a real Hamlet; no stage, but the court at Elsinore. He said that he would call at the hotel in time to catch the boat, and I was glad when he left me to my own thoughts. At 9 o'clock the next morning we went on board a great white boat, so fresh, so full of interest to me that I was in a state of delight, of new expectancy, and when we steamed out into the lake I could scarcely repress a cry of joy so thrilling was the view. I had never seen a large body of water, had striven to picture the majesty of a wave, and now I stood with poetry rolling about me—now a deep-blue elegy, now a limpid lyric, varying in hue with the shifting of a luminous fleece-work, far above. To have been born and brought up amid great scenes were surely a privilege, but to come upon them for the first time when the mind is ripe, when the senses are yearning for a new impression, is indeed a blessing. Short were the sixty miles of our journey, it seemed to me, but Ging was bored and impatiently he snapped his watch, and said that we were at least fifteen minutes late. After having lost all view of the land, how strangely novel was the sight of the shore, and to fancy myself in a foreign harbor was the most natural of conceits.