"Oh, yes, I shall; I am more than willing to be overwhelmed. Ha! I had set my heart on you, and was afraid that you might not be back in time. Thank the Lord for the man who comes in time. All others are a blotch upon the face of the earth. Last night was a torture to me. More than once my wife called out, 'You give me the fidgets with your walking up and down. I want to sleep.' Sleep! There was no sleep for me. I saw the sun rise, and I said to myself, 'If that man don't come you won't shine for me to-day.' But you came, God bless you. Well, I'll turn off here and go by home, to show them that I am not crushed into the earth, and will see you at your house this evening." Mrs. Stuvic saw Milford, and came out to the barnyard gate. She wanted to ask him if he had seen any of her boarders, but had forgotten their names. Some one had told her that Milford expected soon to quit the place, and she asked him why he had not told her. "I've told you as much as I have any one," said he. "I don't expect to go before next spring." "Well, we may all be dead and buried before then," she replied. "Yes, all except you." "You bet! Why, three men have been here lately wantin' to insure my life. Did you see that girl? But I know you did. Why don't you buy the farm and bring her out here? You could soon pay for it." "I'd rather live in the West." "The cat's foot! You don't know what you want. Was that the Professor man with you over there on the hill? I couldn't see very well. He's crazy. Yes, he is, as crazy as a loon, and I don't want him round here. He might set the house afire. Don't you think he's crazy?" "Well, he's one of the peculiar many that go to make up the world." "He's one of the peculiar many that go to make up an asylum, I'll tell you that. Everybody says he's crazy. Come in and set down a while." "No, I must go home." "You're in a mighty hurry now, ain't you? Crazy as a loon, and you ain't fur behind him. Go on with you." At night the Professor came whistling out of the dark. The sky was moonless, but brighter, he said, than the sunrise contemplated by him in the hour of his dejection. Once more had he proved himself a failure, but consoled himself with the assertion, made over and over again, that it required a peculiar sharpness to deal in cattle. There ought to be other ways by which a man might earn money; there were other ways, and he would find one of them. He believed that he could write a book and sell it himself, by subscription. He knew a man who had done this, and now there were stone gate-posts in front of his house. Talk was the necessary equipment, and he could talk. The agent ought to be the echo of the wisdom in the book, and to echo had been his fault in the practical world. But echo was worthy of its hire.