"More definite in your purpose than in your speech."
"Not my purpose, exactly," said Rufus, — "but in possibility."
"There is no peg in possibility for a wise man to hang his cap on."
"Perhaps I am not a wise man," said Rufus, with a very queer face, as if his mind were giving an askance look at the subject.
"That's a supposititious case I shall leave you to deal with."
"Why it's the very sort of case it's your business to deal with," said Rufus. "If the world was full of wise men you'd stand a pretty fair chance of starving, Governor. But seriously, — do you think it is unbecoming a wise man to take any lawful means of keeping out of the way of that same devil of starvation?"
"Do you mean to say that you are in any danger of it?" said
Winthrop looking up again.
"Why no, — not exactly; taking the words literally. But one may starve and yet have enough to eat."
"If one refuses one's food."
"If one don't! I tell you, I have been starving for these two years past. It is not living, to make to-day only feed to- morrow. Besides — I don't see any harm in purchasing, if one can, an exemption from the universal doom of eating one's bread in the sweat of one's brow."