certainly! very true!' to everything I say, when half the time those are
entirely irrelevant answers?" I blushed, and explained that I had been a
little absent-minded. At the end of another half-hour she said, "Please,
why do you grin so steadfastly at vacancy, and yet look so sad?"
I explained that I always did that when I was reflecting. An hour
passed, and then she turned and contemplated me with her earnest eyes and
said, "Why do you cry all the time?" I explained that very funny
comedies always made me cry. At last human nature surrendered, and I
secretly slipped my boots off. This was a mistake. I was not able to
get them on any more. It was a rainy night; there were no omnibuses
going our way; and as I walked home, burning up with shame, with the girl
on one arm and my boots under the other, I was an object worthy of some
compassion--especially in those moments of martyrdom when I had to pass
through the glare that fell upon the pavement from street-lamps.
Finally, this child of the forest said, "Where are your boots?" and being
taken unprepared, I put a fitting finish to the follies of the evening
with the stupid remark, "The higher classes do not wear them to the
theater."

The Reverend had been an army chaplain during the war, and while we were
hunting for a road that would lead to Hamilton he told a story about two
dying soldiers which interested me in spite of my feet. He said that in
the Potomac hospitals rough pine coffins were furnished by government,
but that it was not always possible to keep up with the demand; so, when
a man died, if there was no coffin at hand he was buried without one.
One night, late, two soldiers lay dying in a ward. A man came in with a
coffin on his shoulder, and stood trying to make up his mind which of
these two poor fellows would be likely to need it first. Both of them
begged for it with their fading eyes--they were past talking. Then one
of them protruded a wasted hand from his blankets and made a feeble