as incomprehensible to Mrs.
Bixbee.

CHAPTER XXV.

Two or three days after Christmas John was sitting in his room in the
evening when there came a knock at the door, and to his "Come in" there
entered Mr. Harum, who was warmly welcomed and entreated to take the big
chair, which, after a cursory survey of the apartment and its
furnishings, he did, saying, "Wa'al, I thought I'd come in an' see how
Polly'd got you fixed; whether the baskit [casket?] was worthy of the
jew'l, as I heard a feller say in a theater once."

"I was never more comfortable in my life," said John. "Mrs. Bixbee has
been kindness itself, and even permits me to smoke in the room. Let me
give you a cigar."

"Heh! You got putty well 'round Polly, I reckon," said David, looking
around the room as he lighted the cigar, "an' I'm glad you're
comf'table--I reckon 't is a shade better 'n the Eagle," he remarked,
with his characteristic chuckle.

"I should say so," said John emphatically, "and I am more obliged than I
can tell you."

"All Polly's doin's," asserted David, holding the end of his cigar
critically under his nose. "That's a trifle better article 'n I'm in the
habit of smokin'," he remarked.

"I think it's my one extravagance," said John semi-apologetically, "but
I don't smoke them exclusively. I am very fond of good tobacco, and--"

"I understand," said David, "an' if I had my life to live over agin,
knowin' what I do now, I'd do diff'rent in a number o' ways. I often
think," he proceeded, as he took a pull at the cigar and emitted the
smoke with a chewing movement of his mouth, "of what Andy Brown used to
say. Andy was a curious kind of a customer 't I used to know up to
Syrchester. He liked good things, Andy did, an' didn't scrimp himself
when they was to be had--that is, when he had the go-an'-fetch-it to git
'em with. He used to say, 'Boys, whenever you git holt of a ten-dollar
note you want to git it _into_ ye or _onto_ ye jest 's quick 's you kin.
We're here to-day an' gone to-morrer,' he'd say, 'an' the' ain't no
pocket in a shroud,' an' I'm dum'd if I don't think sometimes," declared
Mr. Harum, "that he wa'n't very fur off neither. 'T any rate," he added
with a philosophy unexpected by his hearer, "'s I look back, it ain't
the money 't I've spent fer the good times 't I've had 't I regret; it's
the good times 't I might 's well 've had an' didn't. I'm inclined to
think," he remarked with an air of having given the matter
c