Before I was all through about Luke, Joe come in with the trout, and some thin, crispy potatoes on the platter, and the toast and the marmalade; and Mr. Ember went to see about the coffee. He brought it out himself, and poured it himself--and it smelled like something I'd never smelled before. And now, when he begun to eat, I watched him. I broke my toast, like he done. I used my fork on the trout, like him, and I noticed he took his spoon out of his cup, and I done that, too, though I'd got so I could drink from a cup without a handle and hold the spoon with my finger, like the boys done. I kept tasting the coffee, too, instead of drinking it off at once, even when it was hot, like I'd learned the trick of. I didn't know but his way just happened to be his way, but I wanted to make sure. Anyway, I never smack my lips, and Luke and the boys do that. "Now," he said, "while we enjoy this very excellent breakfast, will you do me the honor to let me tell you a little something about me?" I don't see what honor that would be, and I said so. And then he told me things. I'm sorry that I can't put them down. It was wonderful. It was just like a story the teacher tells you when you're little and not too old for stories. It turned out he'd been to Europe and to Asia. He'd done things that I never knew there was such things. But he didn't talk about him, he just talked about the things and the places. I forgot to eat. It seemed so funny that I, Cossy Wakely, should be listening to somebody that had done them things. He said something about a volcano. "A volcano!" I says. "Do they have them _now_? I thought that was only when the geography was." "But the geography _is_, you know," he says. "It is now." "Did that big flat book all mean now?" I says. "I thought it meant long ago. I had a picture of the Ark and the flood and the Temple, and when the stars fell--" "Oh, the fools!" he says to himself; but I didn't know who he meant, and I was pretty sure he must mean me. All the while we were having breakfast, he talked with me. When it was over, and he'd paid the bill--I tried my best to see how much it was, so as to tell Lena Curtsy, but I couldn't--he turned around to me and he says: "The grass is not wet this morning. It's high summer. Will you walk with me up to the top of that hill over there in the field? I want to show you the whole world." "Sure," I says. "But you can't see much past Twiney's pasture from that little runt of a hill." We climbed the fence. He put his hand on a post and vaulted the wire as good as the boys could have done. When he turned to help me, I was just doing the same thing. Then it come over me that maybe an author wouldn't think that was ladylike. "I always do them that way," I says, kind of to explain. "Is there any other way?" says he. "No!" says I, and we both laughed. It was nice to laugh with him, and it was the first time we'd done it together.