To my relief, however, he greeted me with his old
cordiality; to my amusement he added to it a suggestion of the
large forgiveness of conscious rectitude and amiable toleration. I
thought, however, I detected, as he glanced at the paper which was
still in my hand and then back again at my face, the same uneasy
canine resemblance I remembered of old. He had changed but little
in appearance; perhaps he was a trifle stouter, more mature, and
slower in his movements. If I may return to my canine
illustration, his grayer, dustier, and more wiry ensemble gave me
the impression that certain pastoral and agricultural conditions
had varied his type, and he looked more like a shepherd's dog in
whose brown eyes there was an abiding consciousness of the care of
straying sheep, and possibly of one black one in particular.
He had, he told me, abandoned mining and taken up farming on a
rather large scale. He had prospered. He had other interests at
stake, "A flour-mill with some improvements--and--and"--here his
eyes wandered to the "Guardian" again, and he asked me somewhat
abruptly what I thought of the paper. Something impelled me to
restrain my previous fuller criticism, and I contented myself by
saying briefly that I thought it rather ambitious for the locality.
"That's the word," he said with a look of gratified relief,
"'ambitious'--you've just hit it. And what's the matter with thet?
Ye kan't expect a high-toned man to write down to the level of
every karpin' hound, ken ye now? That's what he says to me"-- He
stopped half confused, and then added abruptly: "That's one o' my
investments.
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