Oliver, laughing, clapped him on the shoulder.
“You don’t give a fellow a chance,” he said. “Look here, tell me, as man to man, what are you going to do with your life? Here you are, young, strong, educated, intelligent—”
“I’m not strong,” said Doggie.
“A month’s exercise would make you as strong as a mule,” returned Oliver. “Here you are—what are you going to do with yourself?”
“I don’t admit that you have any right to question me,” said Doggie.
“Peggy and I had a talk,” declared Oliver. “I said I’d take you out with me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and exercise. I’ll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about barefoot and swab decks.”
Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely, “Your offer is kind, Oliver, but I don’t think that sort of life would suit me.”
Being a man of intelligence, he realized that Oliver’s offer arose from a genuine desire to do him service. But if a friendly bull out of the fulness of its affection invited you to accompany it to the meadow and eat grass, what could you do but courteously decline the invitation?
“I’m really most obliged to you, Oliver,” said Doggie, finally. “But our ideas are entirely different. You’re primitive, you know. You seem to find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in adopting the resources of civilization to defeat them.”
“Which means,” said Oliver, rudely, “that you’re afraid to roughen your hands and spoil your complexion.”