But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service,
I was not a preacher, when he sharply demanded:

"What do you do for a living?"

I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had
I ever canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could
find myself had sillily stammered, "I--I am a gentleman."

His lip curled in a swift sneer.

"I have worked, I do work," I cried impetuously, as though he were
my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much
aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.

"For your living?"

There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I
was quite beside myself--"rattled," as Furuseth would have termed
it, like a quaking child before a stern school-master.

"Who feeds you?" was his next question.

"I have an income," I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my
tongue the next instant. "All of which, you will pardon my
observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you
about."

But he disregarded my protest.