"But before going away I want to give you some sort of an expression of--" "That's all right, Sir. There's time enough." "No, I shall go to-morrow." "Better wait a day or two. Have you an engagement in view?" "No, and I shall not look for one. I have decided to quit the stage." "Well, Sir, I don't know but you are wise. It must be an uncertain sort of life. But what are you going to do?" "I am going to write plays." "That's well enough; easy work I should think. All you've got to do is to hatch out your plot and then stand your people around it. And look here, Belford, there are characters enough about here to make one of the best plays you ever saw. Why not stay here and do your writing? The fact is, we like you, and don't want you to go away." "But I _must_ go." "You say so, but I don't look at it that way. Of course, if you are tired of our slow and dull city, Sir, you--" "Tired?" I broke in. "It is the most soothing town on the face of the earth. The days melt one into another like the mellow words of an ancient rhetorician." "Belford, I guess you are about ready to begin work on that play," he said, laughing. "There's always a strong enthusiasm behind that sort of talk. By the way, do you think you could take hold of an opera house and manage it?" "Yes, I think so--I know I could. Why?" "We appear to be getting at it, Belford. We have a very good opera house here, almost new. A man from New Orleans built it, went broke in a bigger speculation, leased it to a Dutchman who fiddled in the orchestra, and now the house is without a manager. Suppose you take it?" "I'd take it in a minute, Senator, but the fact is, I'm broke." "Dollars melted like the mellow words of an ancient rhetorician, eh?" For a few moments we drove on in silence, the Senator making with his hat half-circle greetings to constituents who stood in a dooryard or who met us in the road. "Ha! Lester," he cried at a man who came along in a wagon behind a span of mules; and then to me he said: "A few years ago that fellow took it into his head that I was a little too conspicuous--I had called him a liar, or something of the sort, don't remember exactly what--and gave it out that he was going to horsewhip me. And I sent him word to buy his whip from Alf Murray, first-class harness dealer, and a friend of mine, and that I would meet him at his earliest convenience. I don't know whether he patronized my friend in the purchase of a whip, but I know that when I met him on the public square the next day he had one as long as a bull-snake. And, Sir, I believe that he had intended to hit me with it." "What caused him to change his mind?" I inquired, with no interest in the matter.