"Oh, I haven't any use for it here, Norton."
"Then what have you got it here for?"
"Norton, there are some people in the village who are sick, or cannot read; and I was going to read to them."
"Where are they?"
"In Lilac Lane."
"Where is that?"
"You go up past the corner a good way, and just by Mr. Barth's foundry you turn down a few steps, and turn again at the baker's. Then, a little way further on, you strike into the lane."
"That's it, is it? I know. But do you know what sort of people live up that way?"
"Yes."
"Well, there's another thing you don't know, and that's the mud. You'd never have got out again, if you had gone to Lilac Lane to-day. It is three feet deep; and it weighs twenty pounds a foot. After you set your shoe in it, you want a windlass to get it out again."