"Like whom?" I demanded wrathfully, as he paused.
"Like that brute Jones," answered Griggs, with a vicious jerk of his head. "I'll get back on him, you bet!"
I began to see daylight. "Come away up to the house and we'll have a little refreshment," I said, with hospitable zeal.
Griggs brightened. It was a warm day, so I brought him around to the south veranda, but I would have entertained him anywhere else had I remembered that Paul was there. He was curled up in a chair, absorbed in a book. I knew he was oblivious of what had been going on, but there is never any certainty of what Paul may, or may not, say, and I felt a qualm of misgiving. Griggs proceeded to attract his attention by snapping his fingers, as if the boy were a puppy or an infant, remarking, to me, that he was wondering where I kept the kids. Now Paul is not shy, but we never could induce him to notice a stranger's advances without being formally introduced, consequently, if his mind is suddenly withdrawn from his imaginary world, he looks shy; worse, he looks as if he were unseeing, deaf, and an idiot. My mind was preoccupied, or I would have avoided difficulties by introducing Griggs, but I unfortunately neglected that formality. Paul's stolid and incurious gaze rested on my visitor; I looked on spellbound, knowing that his mind was working with intensity, and that something was coming; Griggs shuffled uneasily.
"Well, sonny," said Griggs, at last, "what do you think of me?"
I have watched a toad sit motionless waiting for a fly to come within reach with exactly Paul's expression. I noticed that his eyelids didn't even blink. Griggs glanced at me; I felt, rather than saw, the patronizing condolence of his look. It is the look of the proud father who raises children guaranteed to fit ready-made clothing.
"Paul," I prompted, with pregnant meaning, "why don't you answer? What do you think of this gentleman?"
"I think, father," he answered, in his dreamy, deliberate tone, addressing me pointedly, but still looking at Griggs, "that he looks like a horse."
I felt as if I were falling from a dizzy height, but the sensation was not altogether painful. Griggs bore up better than I could have hoped, and declared with an attempt at jocularity that he would rather look like a horse than a cow. I had no more presence of mind than to reprove Paul on the spot for his rudeness, a course which could only result in one of two things: a howl or an argument. This time it was an argument; but I could better have stood a howl, for he pointed out that his mother had taught him to always tell the truth, and——