The big simpleton drew a pink coloured, badly frayed newspaper out of his pocket. It was The Matrimonial Times, a monthly sheet printed in Seattle and intended for the lonely, lovesick and forlorn of both sexes; a sort of agony column by the mile.
“You don’t mean to say you correspond with anybody through that?”
“You bet!”
“And can’t you land anyone?”
“Not yet! Everybody say, ‘Send photo.’ I send it, then no answer come back.”
“Never mind!” commiserated Phil. “One of these days your picture will reach the right one and she’ll think you’re the only man on earth.”
“Well,––she have to be pretty gol-darn quick now, for I’m all sick inside waiting.”
“Meantime, hadn’t you better get back to work, Sol?”
“Guess, maybe just as well.”
He went into a corner, took off his glad rags, folded them and laid them carefully on a bench, then donned his working trousers, shirt and leather apron, and was soon swinging his hammer and making the sparks fly as if he had no other thought in the world but the welding of the iron he handled to its fore-ordained shape.