him after Boccaccio, to remind me to read the 'Decameron' some day."
"Judging by the way you talk," I said, "you ought to be quite a writer yourself."
"Talkers never write. They go on talking."
There was a considerable silence. Mifflin relit his pipe and watched the landscape with a shrewd eye. I held the reins loosely, and Peg ambled along with a steady clop-clop. Parnassus creaked musically, and the mid-afternoon sun lay rich across the road. We passed another farm, but I did not suggest stopping as I felt we ought to push on. Mifflin seemed lost in meditation, and I began to wonder, a little uneasily, how the adventure would turn out. This quaintly masterful little man was a trifle disconcerting. Across the next ridge I could see the Greenbriar church spire shining white.
"Do you know this part of the country?" I asked finally.
"Not this exact section. I've been in Port Vigor often, but then I was on the road that runs along the Sound. I suppose this village ahead is Greenbriar?"
"Yes," I said. "It's about thirteen miles from
