“‘Jus’ as they used t’ be,’ says I, ‘when you was young.’ “‘Well,’ says he, ‘jig _me!_’ “Then I knowed, somehow, jus’ how old ol’ Bill Hulk must be. “Well, thereafter,” Tumm continued, with a sigh and a genial little smile, “they come lean years an’ they come fat ones, as always, by the mystery o’ God. Ol’ Bill Hulk drove along afore the wind, with his last rags o’ sail all spread, his fortune lean or fat as the Lord’s own seasons ’lowed. He’d fall behind or crawl ahead jus’ accordin’ t’ the way a careful hand might divide fish by hunger; but I ’lowed, by an’ all, he was overhaulin’ Tom Neverbudge’s twenty-three twenty-five, an’ would surely make it if the wind held true a few years longer. ‘Twelve thirty more, Tumm,’ says he, ‘an’ if ’twasn’t for the pork I might manage it this season. The longer you lives, Tumm,’ says he, ‘the more expensive it gets. Cost me four fifty las’ season for Dr. Hook’s Surecure Egyptian Lumbago Oil, an’ one fifty, Tumm, for a pair o’ green glasses t’ fend off blindness from the aged. An’ I jus’ got t’ have pork t’ keep my ol’ bones warm. I don’t _want_ no pork,’ says he; ‘but they isn’t no heat in flour, an’, anyhow, I got t’ build my shoulder muscles up. You take a ol’ hulk like mine,’ says he, ‘an’ you’ll find it a wonderful expensive craft t’ keep in sailin’ order.’ “‘You stick t’ pork,’ says I. “‘I was thinkin’,’ says he, ‘o’ makin’ a small investment in a few bottles o’ Hook’s Vigor. Clerk o’ the _Free for All_,’ says he, ‘’lows ’tis a wonderful nostrum t’ make the old feel young.’ “‘You stick t’ pork,’ says I, ‘an’ be damned t’ the clerk o’ the _Free for All_.’ “‘Maybe I better,’ says he, ‘an’ build up my shoulders. They jus’ _got_ t’ be humored.’