“It certainly is really amazin’,” said old man Greenhut, “how folks keeps on a-missin’ of it, all their lives, by not bein’ on the spot. ’N I’ve noticed always that the folks that ain’t thar all the time ain’t never thar. Once a feller gits the habit o’ bein’ thar, he’s always thar, but once he gits out o’ the habit, or if he never gits it, he ain’t never round when the grand opportunity comes, and just naturally he misses it. Don’t seem to make no difference how likely a man is, or how hard he may try to git a holt o’ the persimmons o’ luck that the good Lord keeps a-growin’ all the time for everybody that’s got the gumption to knock ’em off the bushes, he don’t never get none of ’em ’thout he’s thar, an’ as I said, such folks ain’t never thar. “Now thar’s Tenspot Ike. Thar ain’t no capabler feller ’n him in town ’n’ everybody likes him. If a man wants to stand treat, thar ain’t nobody that’d be more likely to get ’nvited than him, an’ yet Ike, he’ll set around here day in an’ day out, waitin’ for some good angel to step down an’ trouble the pool o’ Siloam, the same bein’ a bottle o’ good old rye for the purpose of illustration, an’ thar won’t be nobody. But just as sartin as some open-hearted friend o’ humanity comes along with a ragin’ thirst an’ the price for two, Ike ain’t around. I call it wicked an’ bad for trade for a man to fly in the face o’ Providence like that.” The old man looked again at the battered half-dollar he had just taken in, and bit on it to make sure it was good. Then looking once more into his cash-drawer to make sure that he had given out the lead quarter in change that had come back to him so often, he came out from behind the bar and took his favourite seat by the window. “D’ye ever hear how Ike come to be called Tenspot?” he asked in a general sort of way, after he had carefully inspected the stump of a cigar that was between his teeth as usual, and had lighted it up again. If anybody had ever heard the story, he forbore to speak, and the old man kept right on talking. “There wasn’t never nothin’ the matter with Ike,” he said, “except that pesky habit o’ his o’ bein’ always somewheres else. You could always count on him with a copper. ’F you wanted him anywheres special, he wasn’t there. I remember one time we’d ketched a hoss thief right here in town, ’n’ had everythin’ ready to send him off to glory sudden like, exceptin’ for a Testament to swear the witnesses on, an’ Ike had the on’y copy o’ the Good Book there was in town.