“Bill, supposing that any day you should walk along that big Pathway known in Sunday School as ‘Our Straight But Narrow Way.’ You would find coming towards you, all sorts of folks: a king, roaring past in his big chariot, a capitalist with his bands full of bonds, an old, old lady, on a crutch. Such passings would bring to you various thoughts. But, supposing it was a possibility that you saw Bill Simpkins coming your way. Aha! What an opportunity to watch that grouchy old—”
“That what?”
“I’ll say it again: that grouchy old crab. How you would gawk at him, that most important of all folks, to you. How you would look at his clothing, his hat, his boots! That individual would pass an inquiry such as you had not thought it a possibility to put a man up against. Bill, I think that if you should pass Councilman Simpkins on that Big Pathway, you would say: ‘What a grouchy old crittur that was!”
Old Bill stood calmly during this oration, and, looking around that big park, said:—
“John, you know how to talk, all right, all right. I’ll admit that things you say do do a lot of good around this town. But if I should run across this guy you talk about, on that vaporous highway, or ‘boardwalk’, as I should call it,—I’d say, right
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