said:

"Friend, will you do me a favour? I neglected to stop at the
post-office. Would you call and see whether anything has been left for
me in the box since the carrier started?'"

"Certainly," he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly
aside again.

On his way back he stopped and left me a paper. He told me volubly about
the way he would run the post-office if he were "in a place of suitable
authority."

"Great things are possible," he said, "to the man of ideas."

At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the
bee-man. The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy
bee-man.

"I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in. I
was up half the night; but I feel all right now."

The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the
exuberant bee-man--hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words,
"I think you will understand." I grasped his hand, and left him with a
wan smile on his face. Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a
wholly different manner. With the one I was blustering,
hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk;
but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship,
for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure. He needed a
friend! The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in
his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.

I told Harriet about my adventures: they did not meet with her approval.
She said I was encouraging a vice.

"Harriet," I said, "go over and see his wife. I wonder what she thinks
about it."

"Thinks!" exclaimed Harriet. "What should the wife of a drunkard
think?"

But she went over. As soon as she returned I saw that something was
wrong, but I asked no questions. During supper she was extraordinarily
preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she
came into my room.

"David," she said, "I can't understand some things."

"Isn't human nature doing what it ought to?" I asked.

But she was not to be joked with.

"David, that man's wife doesn't seem to be sorry because he comes home
drunken every week or two! I talked with her about it and what do you
think she said? She said she knew it was wrong, but she intimated that
when he was in that state she loved--liked--him all the better. Is it
believable? She said: 'Perhaps you won't understand--it's wrong, I know,
but when h