"Because I must rest, and because--well, because of many things. Never mind. I'm not going and you are. I'm going a fishing. Draw up all the necessary papers and I'll execute them. Can you get them ready to-night? I want to go away to-morrow morning and forget." "Where will you go? To Wanalah?" "No; except for brief preparations. To the mountains. You know I own three or four high mountain tops up in the Blue Ridge, with the swales, called valleys, that lie between. The land is worthless, but the woods up there are full of game and the brooks alive with trout. My grandfather bought the vast tract as an indulgence and my father kept it with a like purpose. There's a shack of some sort up there I believe. If not, I can build one in a half day, and it will interest me to chink and daub it." Jack Towns sat silent for a time. Then he said: "I heartily disapprove of your plan. It means solitude, and you need association with men to cure you of morbid and unwholesome feelings." "But I can associate with men only upon sufferance. You've heard of the person who said: 'The more I see of men, the better I like dogs.' I'm not quite of his mind, but anyhow I'm going up into the high mountains with my dogs, my guns and my fishing tackle. So get all the papers ready, Jack, and let me get away as soon as possible." Again, Jack Towns sat silent and troubled. After awhile he said: "Of course you'll go to my house to-night and be my guest so long as you remain in Richmond?" "Thank you, I will if you'll see to it that no visitors get at me. I want to go to sleep as soon as this thing's over and I'd like to stay asleep forever." "You're all wrong, but of course as a guest in my house you'll be protected from everything that is reasonably or unreasonably disagreeable to you. But really, Boyd, the people who are sure to call to-night--" "Yes, I know. They will call to offer congratulations which are in fact commiserations and condolences. I don't care to attend my own funeral in the capacity of chief mourner, just yet. I shouldn't mind the funeral, with myself for the corpse, but I'm not prepared to play the part of chief mourner." "You're morbid, Boyd." "Perhaps so, but I'm going to become healthy again. Now listen. I'm going off into the mountains to match my wits with those of the wiliest trout, the shyest deer, the most experienced wild turkey gobblers, and now and then perhaps to try conclusions with a sly old bear. By the time I return to civilization, I'll have decided upon my career. I'm going to do something--I don't know what. But by that time I'll know." "Good! That's the way to look at things. After all, the strain your stoicism has put upon you hasn't robbed you of your robust manhood, and that is what I feared."