"Enough for our needs."
"Then you will see nothing. The world gives to them that already have, an' more than have."
"What do you hope for to-night?"
"To be drunk."
"That is a poor thing to hope for. Better to think of the laugh and the joke by the fireside; and of food and drink, too, if you will: of the pipes, and dancing, and pretty girls."
"Do as you like. As for me, I hope to be drunk."
"Why?"
"Why? Because I'll be another man then. I'll have forgotten all that I now remember from sunrise to sundown. Can you think what it is to break a hope in your heart each time you crack a stone on the roadside? That's what I am, a stone-breaker, an' I crack stones inside as well as outside. It's a stony place my heart, God knows."
"You are young to speak like that, and you speak like a man who has known better days."
"Oh, I'm ancient enough," said the man, with a short laugh.