"How old are you?" Adelle asked.
"Twenty-eight," the mason replied.
That was only a few years older than Adelle herself, but she recognized that the man's experience of living had been far more than hers, also deeper, so that he was justified in having opinions on the serious things of life. Wealth, she might think, was not the only road to "a full life" so much talked of in her circle.
"Have you always been a stone mason?" she wanted to know.
"Pretty much ever since I could lift a stone. An old feller took me from mother to work for my keep when I was fourteen. He used to do some mason work, and he knew how to lay stone—none better! He learned his trade back East where he come from. He was one of the real forty-niners, and knew my grandfather's folks—they all came to California the same time.... I've been all over this country, up and down the Coast, to Alasky and over in Nevada, at Carson City; drilling for oil, too, south. Oh, I've seen things," he mused complacently, puffing at his pipe and scratching his bare arms that were as smooth and brown as fine bronze. "And I tell you there ain't much in it for the laboring-man, no matter what wages he gets, unless he's got extry luck, which most of 'em ain't. No wonder he goes after booze when he has the chance. What's there in it for him anyhow?"
Adelle, who had not been educated to philanthropy and social service, did not attempt to answer this difficult question.
"Not that I booze often," the mason explained with pride. "I reckon not to make a hog of myself, but when you've been off on a job for months, working all day long six days in the week in the heat and dust, you accumulate a thirst and a devilment in you that needs letting out."
He grinned at Adelle as if he felt that she might be sympathetic with his simple point of view and added,—
"I guess that's what made me sassy to you this morning!"
It was his sole apology. They both laughed, accepting it as such, and Adelle, to shift the topic, remarked,—