"Most folks are worried in the morning. I'm worried, too. Go to sleep. You'll feel better after a while."
"It's nothing to do with the morning," complained his wife. "It's—it's a letter from Gordon. The poor boy writes such queer letters. It's all through you being so hard on him. You never did have any feeling for—for anybody. I'm sure he's suffering. He never talked this way before. Maybe he don't get enough to eat; he don't say where he is either. Perhaps he's just nowhere in particular. You'd better ring up an inquiry bureau——"
"For goodness' sake read the letter," growled the drowsy man. "You're making as much fuss as a hen with bald chicks."
Mrs. Carbhoy withered her husband with a glance that fell only upon the back of his great head. But she had her way. She meant him to share in her anxiety through the text of the, to her, incomprehensible letter. She read slowly and deliberately, and in a voice calculated to rivet any wandering attention.
"DEAREST MUM:
"There's folks who say that no man knows the real meaning of luck, good or bad, till he takes to himself a wife. This may be right. My argument is, it's only partially so. There may be considerable luck about matrimony. For instance, if any fool man came along and married our Gracie he'd be taking quite a chance. Her native indolence and peevishness suggest possibilities. Her tongue is vitriolic in one so young, as I have frequently had reason to observe. This would certainly be a case where the man would learn the real meaning of luck. But there wouldn't be a question. His luck would be out—plumb out. Jonah would have been a mascot beside him.
"This is by the way.
"I argue luck can be appreciated fully through channels less worrying. When luck gets busy around its coming is kind of subtle. It's sudden, too; kind of butts in unnoticed, sometimes painfully, and generally without shouting. Maybe it happens with a bump or a jar. Personally I'm betting on the 'bump' play. A bump of that nature got busy my way when I arrived here. I now have a full appreciation of luck. Quite as full an appreciation as the man would who married our Gracie. But in my case I guess it's good luck. This isn't going to tell you all that's in my mind, but, seeing I haven't fallen for fiction yet, I guess I won't try to be more explicit. Luck, in my present position, means the coming responsibility of success. You might hand this on to the old Dad.
"Talking of the old Dad, it seems to me that, for a delicate digestion, baked custard and fruit have advantages over ice-cream as a sweet. This again is by the way.
"In my last letter I gave you a few first impressions on arrival at my destination. Now, if you'll permit, I'll add what I might call the maturer reflections of a mind wide awake to life as it really is, and to the inner meaning of those things which are so carefully hidden from one brought up in luxury, as I have been. One of the 'dead snips' this way is that cleverness and wisdom are often confused by the ignorant. Cleverness don't mean wisdom, and—vice versa. For instance, loafing idly down a main street six inches deep in a dust that would shame a blizzard when the wind blows, with a blazing sun scorching the marrow of the spine till it's ready to be spread out on toast, escorted by an army of disgusting flies moving in massed formation, and not knowing better than to drive your soul to perdition through the channel of extreme bad language, don't suggest cleverness. Yet there may surely be a deal of wisdom in it if it only keeps you from doing something a heap more foolish. Maybe this don't sound altogether bright, but there's quite a deal in it. Think it out. Another thought is that learning's quite a sound proposition. For instance, a superficial knowledge of geology may come mighty handy at unexpected moments. A knowledge of this served me at a critical moment only to-day. So you see an intimate acquaintance with sharp flints, collected—the acquaintance, not the flints—during my time as the possessor of an automobile, which the Dad provided me with and for the upkeep of which he so kindly paid, has likely had more influence upon my future life than the best talk ever handed out by a Fifth Avenue preacher ever would have done. I have no thought of being irreverent. I am merely handing you a fact. People say that missed opportunities always make you hate to think of them in after life. For my part, I've generally figured this to be the philosophic hot air of a man who's getting old and hates to see youth around him, or else the chin mush of some fool man who's never had any opportunities, talking through the roof of his head. I kind of see it different now. You gave me the opportunity of studying all the beauties of the world seen through an artist's life. I guessed at the time that would be waste of precious moments that might be spent chasing athletics. It's only to-day I've got wise to what a heap I've lost in twenty-four years. Colors just seemed to me messy mixtures only fit to spoil paper and canvas with. Well, to-day I've hit on something in the way of color that's just about set me crazy to see it all the time. It's a sort of yellowy, greeny brown. That don't sound as merry as it might, but to me it talks plenty. It's just the dandiest color ever. I discovered it out on a 'long, lone trail'—that's how folks talk in books—where the surroundings weren't any improvement on just plain grass. Say, Mum, I guess that color is great. It gets a grip on you so you don't seem to care if a local freight train comes along and dissects your vitals, and chews them up ready for making a delicatessen sausage. When I die I'll just have to have my shroud dyed that color, and my coffin fixed that way, too.