Phil continued to rub the works of the watch, but made no reply.
“I say, Phil,” observed the little fellow, after a thoughtful pause.
“Well?”
“Don’t it strike you, sometimes, that this is a queer sort of world?”
“Yes, I’ve often thought that, and it has struck me, too, that you are one of the queerest fish in it.”
“Come, Phil, don’t be cheeky. I’m in a sedate frame of mind to-night, an’ want to have a talk in a philosophical sort o’ way of things in general.”
“Well, Pax, go ahead. I happen to have been reading a good deal about things in general of late, so perhaps between us we may grind something out of a talk.”
“Just so; them’s my ideas precisely. There’s nothin’,” said Pax, thrusting both hands deeper into his trousers pockets, and swinging his legs more vigorously—“nothin’ like a free an’ easy chat for developin’ the mental powers. But I say, what a fellow you are for goin’ ahead! Seems to me that you’re always either workin’ at queer contrivances or readin’.”
“You forget, Pax, that I sometimes carry telegraphic messages.”
“Ha! true, then you and I are bound together by the cords of a common dooty—p’r’aps I should say an uncommon dooty, all things considered.”