“He didn't pay much attention to us, nor to anybody else, for the matter of that. He was as mournful as a hearse, for all his joyful togs. “'Fine day, ain't it?' says Sim, social. “The tall chap looked up at him from under the deck of the beaver hat. “'Huh!' he growls out, and looks down again. “'I say it's a fine day,' said Phinney again. “'I was after hearin' yez say it,' says the man, and walks off, scowlin' like a meat ax. We looked after him. “'Who was that murderer?' asks Sim of the clerk. 'And when are they going to hang him?' “'S-sh-sh!' whispers the clerk, scart. ''Tis the boss. The bloke what runs the hotel. He's a fine man, but he has troubles. He's blue.' “'So that's the boss, hey?' says I. 'And he's blue. Well, he looks it. What's troublin' him? Ain't business good?' “'Never better. It ain't that. He has things on his mind. You see--' “I cal'late he'd have told us the yarn, only Sim wouldn't wait to hear it. We was goin' sight-seein' and we had 'aquarium' and 'Stock Exchange' on the list for that afternoon. The hotel clerk had made out a kind of schedule for us of things we'd ought to see while we was in New York, and so fur we'd took in the zoological menagerie and the picture museum, and Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge. “On the way downtown in the elevated railroad Sim done some preachin'. His text was took from the Golconda House sign, which had 'T. Dempsey, Proprietor,' painted on it. “'It's that Dempsey man's conscience that makes him so blue, Hiram,' says Sim. 'It's the way he makes his money. He sells liquor.' “'Oh!' says I. 'Is THAT it? I thought maybe he'd been sleepin' on one of his own hotel beds. THEY'RE enough to make any man blue--black and blue.' “The 'aquarium' wa'n't a success. Phinney was disgusted. He give one look around, grabbed me by the arm, and marched me out of that building same as Deacon Titcomb, of the Holiness Church at Denboro, marched his boy out of the Universalist sociable. “'It's nothin' but a whole passel of fish,' he snorts. 'The idea of sendin' two Cape Codders a couple of miles to look at FISH. I've looked at 'em and fished for 'em, and et 'em all the days of my life,' he says, 'and when I'm on a vacation I want a change. I'd forgot that “aquarium” meant fish, or you wouldn't have got me within smellin' distance of it. Necessity's one thing and pleasure's another, as the boy said about takin' his ma's spring bitters.'