“Almost,” says he. “But it’s worth it. Marthy would have looked mighty stylish in that purple one. Yes, yes! And when I get back to South Forks, the first thing I do will be to carry it up on the knoll, box and all, and leave it there. I wonder if she’ll know, eh?”
There wa’n’t any use in my tellin’ him what I thought, though. He wa’n’t talkin’ to me, anyway. There was a kind of a far off, batty look in his eyes as he stood there on the corner, and a drop of brine was tricklin’ down one side of his nose. So we never says a word, but just shakes hands, him goin’ his way, and me mine.
“Chee!” says Swifty Joe, when I shows up, along about three o’clock, “you must have been puttin’ away a hearty lunch!”
“It wa’n’t that kept me,” says I. “I was helpin’ hand a late one to Marthy.”
CHAPTER II
HOW MAIZIE CAME THROUGH
Then again, there’s other kinds from other States, and no two of ’em alike. They float in from all quarters, some on ten-day excursions, and some with no return ticket. And, of course, they’re all jokes to us at first, while we never suspicion that all along we may be jokes to them.
And say, between you and me, we’re apt to think, ain’t we, that all the rapid motion in the world gets its start right here in New York? Well, that’s the wrong dope. For instance, once I got next to a super-energized specimen that come in from the north end of nowhere, and before I was through the experience had left me out of breath.