“Among other things,” returned Phil, “I have found out by reading that there are two kinds of men in the world, the men who push and strive and strike out new ideas, and the men who jog along easy, on the let-be-for-let-be principle, and who grow very much like cabbages.”
“You’re right there, Phil—an’ yet cabbages ain’t bad vegetables in their way,” remarked Pax, with a contemplative cast of his eyes to the ceiling.
“Well,” continued Phil gravely, “I shouldn’t like to be a cabbage.”
“W’ich means,” said the other, “that you’d rather be one o’ the fellows who push an’ strive an strike out noo ideas.”
Phil admitted that such were his thoughts and aspirations.
“Now, Pax,” he said, laying down the tool with which he had been working, and looking earnestly into his little friend’s face, “something has been simmering in my mind for a considerable time past.”
“You’d better let it out then, Phil, for fear it should bu’st you,” suggested Pax.
“Come, now, stop chaffing for a little and listen, because I want your help,” said Phil.
There was something in Phil’s look and manner when he was in earnest which effectually quelled the levity of his little admirer. The appeal to him for aid, also, had a sedative effect. As Phil went on, Pax became quite as serious as himself. This power of Pax to suddenly discard levity, and become interested, was indeed one of the qualities which rendered him powerfully attractive to his friend.
“The fact is,” continued Phil, “I have set my heart on forming a literary association among the telegraph-boys.”