way I am now is this, that
I wouldn't have them say a good word of me at all."

"Would you tell me why the people speak badly of you?"

"You are travelling down the road," said he, "and I am staying where I
am. We never met before in all the years, and we may never meet again,
and so I'll tell you what is in my mind.--A person that has neighbours
will have either friends or enemies, and it's likely enough that he'll
have the last unless he has a meek spirit. And it's the same way with
a man that's married, or a man that has a brother. For the neighbours
will spy on you from dawn to dark, and talk about you in every place,
and a wife will try to rule you in the house and out of the house until
you are badgered to a skeleton, and a brother will ask you to give him
whatever thing you value most in the world."

He remained silent for a few minutes, with his hammer eased on his
knee, and then, in a more heated strain, he continued--

"These are three things a man doesn't like--he doesn't like to be spied
on, and he doesn't like to be ruled and regulated, and he doesn't like
to be asked for a thing he wants himself. And, whether he lets himself
be spied on or not, he'll be talked about, and in any case he'll be
made out to be a queer man; and if he lets his wife rule him he'll be
scorned and laughed at, and if he doesn't let her rule him he'll be
called a rough man; and if he once gives to his brother he will have to
keep on giving for ever, and if he doesn't give in at all he'll get the
bad name and the sour look as he goes about his business."

"You have bad neighbours, indeed," said I.

"I'd call them that."

"And a brother that would ask you for a thing you wanted yourself
wouldn't be a decent man."

"He would not."

"Tell me," said I, "what kind of a wife have you?"

"She's the same as any one else's wife to look at, but I fancy the
other women must be different to live with."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you can hear men laughing and singing in every public-house
that you'd go into, and they wouldn't do that if their wives were hard
to live with, for nobody could stand a bad comrade. A good wife, a
good brother, a good neighbour--these are three good things, but you
don't find them lying in every ditch."

"If you went to a ditch for your wife----!" said I.

He pursed up his lips at me.

"I think," said I, "that you need not mind the neighbours so very much
for no one can spy on you but yourself.