"Pull up the lap robe," I said, "and be comfortable."

"Well, sir, I'm glad of a lift," he remarked. "A bag of seed wheat is
about all a man wants to carry for four miles."

"Aren't you the man who has taken the old Rucker farm?" I asked.

"I'm that man."

"I've been intending to drop in and see you," I said.

"Have you?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes," I said. "I live just across the hills from you, and I had a
notion that we ought to be neighbourly--seeing that we belong to the
same society."

His face, which had worn a look of set discouragement (he didn't know
beforehand what the Rucker place was like!), had brightened up, but when
I spoke of the society it clouded again.

"You must be mistaken," he said. "I'm not a Mason!"

"No more am I," I said.

"Nor an Oddfellow."

"Nor I."