"Being wet through at this rate?"
"Don't signify whether a man's killed one way or another," was the somewhat unhopeful answer. "Come to the same thing in the long run, I expect."
"Might as well make as long a run as you can of it. Why don't you wear some sort of an overcoat?"
"I keep it — same way you do yourn. — No use to spoil a thing for nothing. There's no good of an overcoat but to hold so much heft of water, and a man goes lighter without it. As long as you've got to be soaked through, what's the odds?"
"I didn't lay my account with this sort of thing when I set out," said Winthrop.
"O I did. I have it about a third of the time, I guess. This and March is the plaguiest months in the hull year. They do use up a man."
Some thread of association brought his little sister's open book and pointed finger on the sudden before Winthrop, and for a moment he was silent.
"Yours is rather bad business this time of year," he remarked.
"Like all other business," said the man; "aint much choice. There's a wet and a dry to most things. What's yourn? if I may ask."
"Wet," said Winthrop.