He was cold, suspicious, inquisitive. Evidently unused to being asked for permission to go into his church, and equally evidently unused to persons passing through a village which was, for most persons, on the way to nowhere, he endeavored with some skill to discover what I was doing there. With equal skill I evaded answering his questions. They included inquiries as to my name, my age, my address, my father's profession, the existence or not of a husband, the number of my brothers and sisters, and distinct probings into the size of our income. It struck me that he had a great deal of time and very few visitors, except thieves. Delicately I conveyed this impression to him, leaving out only the thieves, by means of implications of a vaguely flattering nature. He shrugged his shoulders, and said it was too wet for funerals, which were the only things doing at this time of the year. 'What, don't they die when it is wet?' I asked, surprised. 'Certainly, if it is necessary,' said he. 'Oh,' said I, pondering. 'But if some one does he has to be buried?' 'We put it off,' said he. 'Put it off?' 'We put it off,' he repeated firmly. 'But--' I began, in a tone of protest. 'There's always a fine day if one waits long enough,' said he. 'That's true,' said I, struck by a truth I had not till then consciously observed. He did not ask me to sit down, a careful eye, I suppose, having gauged the probable effect of my wet clothes on his dry chairs, so we stood facing each other on the strip of matting throwing questions and answers backward and forward like a ball. And I think I played quite skilfully, for at the end of the game he knew little more than when we began. And so at last he gave me the key, and having with a great rattling of its handle concealed that he was unlocking the door, and further cloaked this process by a pleasant comment on the way doors stick in wet weather, which I met with the cold information that ours didn't, he whistled off the dogs, and I left him still with an inquiry in his eye.