"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, 'Madam, there are no women in this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.'" He cleared his throat, and cocked his head. The sharp face of his host looked serious, but there was a titter in his breast. "Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and yet the gossip of the neighborhood will force its way in. I have heard much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing." "Then I must be rare," said Milford. "Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?" "No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast." "A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts." "Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time." "A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?" "I've broken out there in spots." "Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school. Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to break out in a spot called Grayson?" "I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else." "You did? That was my town, sir--a seat of learning made famous by a bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?" "Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book." "Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife. She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?" "Mostly between here and sunset."