But the main good I got out of Spike was learnin' how to take old Cast Steel Judson. It was some years after this before I met up with him; but the good effect hadn't worn off and me an' Cast Steel just merged together like butter an' a hot penny. I wasn't much more 'an a kid even then, but law! I wish I knew just half as much now as I thought I did then. My self respect was certainly a bulky article those days an' I wasn't in the habit of undervaluin' my own judgment--not to any great extent; but that habit o' study I'd formed with Spike was my balance wheel, an' I generally managed to keep my conceit from shuttin' out the entire landscape. The' wasn't a great deal escaped my eye, 'cause I begun to notice purty tol'able young that experience is consid'able like a bank account: takes a heap o' sweat to get her started, but she's comfortable to draw on in a pinch. Ol' man Judson was a curious affair, had his own way o' doin' every blessed thing, an' whenever he hired a man he always went through the same rigamarole. "Now what I'm contractin' for," he'd say, "is just only your time an' whatever part o' your thinkin' apparatus as is needed in doin' YOUR share o' my business. If I detail you to sit in the shade an' count clouds, I don't want no argument, I want the clouds counted. When I don't specially express a hungerin' for any of your advice, that's the very time when you don't need to give any. Whenever you think you have a kick comin'--why think again. Then if you still see the kick, make it to the foreman. If that don't work make it to me; but when you make it to me, you want to be mighty sure it will hold water. Above all things I hate a liar, a coward, an' a sneak. Now get busy 'cause life is short an' time is fleetin'."