it out in the morning as early as this?"

"Yes," I said, "often."

"And do you find things any different now from what they would be later
in the day?"

At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to
revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we
do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we
can fight! And be honest!

"Horace," I said, "I know what you are thinking about."

Horace's face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of
curiosity in his eye.

"You've been thinking I've been wasting my time beating around down
there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things--which
you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don't
you, Horace? I'll warrant you've told your wife just that more than
once. Come, now!"

I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and
a little foolish.

"Come now, honest!" I laughed and looked him in the eye.

"Waal, now, ye see--"

"Of course you do, and I don't mind it in the least."

A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye.

"Ain't ye?"

It's a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend.

"No," I said, "I'm the practical man and you're the dreamer. I've rarely
known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you are, nor a
more impractical one."

Horace laughed.

"How do ye make that out?"

With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as
good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the
offensive.

"Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?"

This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred
human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying,
thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why.

"Why, to make a living--same as you," said Horace.

"Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor
neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that
he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you
working for? It's something more than a mere living."

"Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a
little something for a rainy day."

"A little something!" this in the exact inflection of irony by which
here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a
good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also
in the ex