Mostyn held on to his bag, which the swarthy hands were grasping. "No, I'm not going to stop," he explained. "I'm going out to Drake's farm."
"Oh, is you? Well, suh, Mr. John Webb is in de freight depot. I done hear 'im say he fetched de buggy ter tek somebody out."
At this juncture the florid and flushed face of Webb was seen as he emerged from the doorway of the depot. He was bent under a weighty bag of flour, and smiled and waved his hat by way of salutation as he advanced to a buggy at a public hitching-rack and deposited his burden in the receptacle behind the single seat. This done, he came forward, brushing the sleeve of his alpaca coat and grinning jovially.
"How are you?" He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you look all right to me-that is, as well as any of you city fellers ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I reckon thar is so much smoke over your town that the sun don't strike it good and straight."
"Oh, I'm all right," Mostyn said, good-naturedly, "just a little run down from overwork, that's all."
"Run down?" Webb seemed quite concerned with getting at the exact meaning of the statement, and as he took Mostyn's bag and put it in with the flour he eyed the banker attentively. "Run down?" he repeated, with his characteristic emphasis. "I don't see how a man as big an' hearty as you look an' weighin' as much could git sick or even tired without havin' any more work to do than you have. I've always meant to ask you or Mr. Saunders what you fellers do, anyway. I reckon banks are the same in big towns as in little ones. They haven't got a regular bank here in Ridgeville, but I've been to the one in Darley. I went in with Tom when he wanted to draw the cash on a cotton check. Talk about hard work—I'll swear I couldn't see it. Me 'n' Tom had been up fully three hours knockin' about the streets tryin' to kill the best part o' the day before that shebang opened up for business, an' then somebody said they shet up at three o'clock an' went home to take a nap or whiz about in their automobiles. The whole thing's bothered me a sight, for I do like to understand things. How could a checker-playin' business like that tire anybody?"
"It's head-work," Mostyn obligingly explained, as he followed John into the buggy and sat beside him. "Head-work," Webb echoed, the cloud still on his brow. He clucked to his horse and gently shook the reins. "To save me I don't see how head-work—if there is such a thing—could tire out a man's legs and arms and body."
"There is a good deal of worry attached to it," Mostyn felt impelled to say. "Nowadays they are saying that worry will kill a man quicker than any sort of physical ailment. You see, good sound sleep is necessary, and when a man is greatly bothered he simply can't sleep."
"Oh, I see, I see," Webb's blue eyes flashed. "Thar may be something in that, but it does seem like a man would have more gumption 'an to worry hisse'f to death about something that won't be of use to 'im after he dies. That's common sense, ain't it?"
Mostyn was compelled to admit the truth of the remark. They had driven out of the village square and were now in the open country.