"Well, there are no coddling worms—"
"You'll admit that because no one ever sued the smelter for putting coddling worms in apples. Come along! Don't listen to him!"
"But there is fire-blight on pears—"
"That's a damned lie! I have a whole orchard of pears and there has never been a trace of fire-blight. Any fire-blight in this district has been caused by the smoke from your blithering smelter."
"But," I reproached him, "if something like fire-blight is caused by smelter smoke, isn't that just as bad as fire-blight? You didn't say anything to me about smelter smoke."
"It doesn't do any damage either—at least not much."
"But the farmers have been suing us," said the smoke expert. "Of course they had no reason to sue us because the damage was clearly done by fire-blight."
"Nothing of the kind! And, anyway, the prevailing wind carries the smelter smoke over the mountains where there are no orchards or farms. Aw, come along, and don't listen to him!"
The "smoke expert" smiled sadly and shook his head with gentle tolerance. Finding in me the first sympathetic listener he had had for years he persisted in making revelations.