"But to have any one to feel for—that is life," I said. "I wish I had more of it myself."
"Life, then, is not happiness."
I left him the last word, and sitting so, both silent, we heard a screen-door at the kitchen-end blow to with a bang and a clatter of tinware that sent the blood to my face in wrath. I said something—about Jim and his fly-doors (Jim believed that flies or their ghosts besieged that house all winter)—when the old heathen himself came boiling into the room like a whole United States mail service delayed.
"Hoo! Heap bad ou'si'! Heap snow!" he panted, wiping drops from the lock of the mail-pouch with his apron.
My wrath increased, because once more Fahey had got past the front door with the mail, whereas each night I had promised myself to waylay him and change his roundabout method of delivery. "If I live till tomorrow," I said crossly, "I'll see if he can't climb those steps and hand us the bag himself."
Jim stood listening. "We might be at dinner," Joshua suggested.
"What's the matter with knocking?—what is the knocker for?" It struck me, as I spoke, that I had not heard the sound of the knocker since the day Jim stayed my own hand and shunted me in at the side; it seemed he must have practised the same vigilance with subsequent comers, for I could not recall one person who had entered the house announced by the brass lion's head on the door.
"He no lock!" Jim planted himself in front of me; his voice quavered nervously. "All time I un-lock! Fi' 'tlock whistle blow—I go quick! Nobody wait. I all time run."
"Why should you run? What is the knocker for?" I repeated. At this I stepped past him startling him somewhat, and hurled open the front door. I had heard our coy watchman going down the path.
"Tomorrow night, Fahey," I shouted, "you bring the bag in this way. Knock, man! There's the knocker—see?"