Every summer
he goes out of town for a few weeks. On a given day of the month a wagon
stops at the door and takes up, not his trunks, for he does not indulge
in any such extravagance, but the stout brown linen bags in which he
packs the few conveniences he carries with him.
I do not think this worthy and economical personage will have much to do
or to say, unless he marries the Landlady. If he does that, he will play
a part of some importance,--but I don't feel sure at all. His talk is
little in amount, and generally ends in some compact formula condensing
much wisdom in few words, as that a man, should not put all his eggs in
one basket; that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of
it; and one in particular, which he surprised me by saying in pretty good
French one day, to the effect that the inheritance of the world belongs
to the phlegmatic people, which seems to me to have a good deal of truth
in it.
The other elderly personage, the old man with iron-gray hair and large
round spectacles, sits at my right at table. He is a retired college
officer, a man of books and observation, and himself an author. Magister
Artium is one of his titles on the College Catalogue, and I like best to
speak of him as the Master, because he has a certain air of authority
which none of us feel inclined to dispute.
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