Pippin fared merrily onward, walking briskly. As he went, he talked aloud, now addressing the stick, which he called his pal, now an imaginary comrade, now the beloved figure of the chaplain. This habit of talking aloud had been formed in his prison days. A wholly social creature, he loved the kindly sound of the human voice, and when there was no other to hear he must listen to his own. He even called up the family that his fancy had fashioned, and pictured them walking the road with him, "Ma" in her blue dress, with her pink cheeks and bright eyes, "Pa" brown and stalwart as himself ("only he'd wear a beard, kind of ancient-like and respectable"), the little girl, even the baby. A fanciful Pippin; but "I like to have things inter_est_in'," he would say, "and they can't be real interestin' unless you have somebody to chin with. See?" He was deep in an imaginary argument with the chaplain concerning the merits and demerits of Chiney Pottle, who had occupied the next cell to his. "I don't say he's lively company, Elder, nor I don't say he's han'some. Take a guy like that, color of last week's lemon, and he's got somethin' wrong with his liver, most likely, and Chiney sure has. He has pains something fierce; I hear him groanin' nights. I see a yarn in a book about a bird interferin' with some guy's liver: well, Chiney sounded like that. But what I would say, you start anybody else groanin' or belly-achin', any way, shape, or manner, and Chiney's _all there_! Shuts up on his own, and is orful sorry you--" "Hi!" said a voice close beside him. Pippin started violently. He had been so absorbed in talk that he had not heard the sound of wheels in the soft dust of the road. The driver of the wagon pulled up his horse and surveyed him curiously. "Who were you talkin' to?" he asked. Pippin blushed, but met his questioner's look cheerfully. A thickset, grizzled man with an honest face, now screwed up in a puzzled expression, bent forward over the dasher. "Who were you talkin' to?" he repeated. "I was just talkin'!" said Pippin. "I admire to talk, don't you?" The man looked about, to see if any one else were near: then again at Pippin. "You don't look like a drinkin' man!" he said. "That's because I ain't!" Pippin smiled. "Nor yet you don't look loony! Yet there you was, footin' it along, and talkin' nineteen to the dozen. Looks queer, to me!" "Does it? Now I maintain that it's more natural for a man to talk than to keep still." The man studied Pippin with shrewd, observant eyes. At last, "Like a lift?" he said. "Thank'ee!" said Pippin, and in another minute they were jogging along the road. "Nice day!" said the stranger.