With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as
good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the
offensive.

"Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?"

This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred
human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying,
thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why.

"Why, to make a living--same as you," said Horace.

"Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor
neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that
he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you
working for? It's something more than a mere living."

"Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a
little something for a rainy day."

"A little something!" this in the exact inflection of irony by which
here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a
good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also
in the exact manner of one so complimented.

"Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?"

"Thirty thousand!" Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace
and smile.