"Then you can't go with us in the morning?"

"How _can_ I, sah?"

Mrs. Johnson went sadly out of the room. Then she came back to the door
again, and, opening it, uttered, for the first time in our service, words
of apology and regret: "I hope I ha'n't put you out any. I _wanted_
to go with you, but I ought to _knowed_ I couldn't. All is, I loved
you too much."




DOORSTEP ACQUAINTANCE


Vagabonds the world would no doubt call many of my doorstep acquaintance,
and I do not attempt to defend them altogether against the world, which
paints but black and white and in general terms. Yet I would fain veil
what is only half-truth under another name, for I know that the service of
their Gay Science is not one of such disgraceful ease as we associate with
ideas of vagrancy, though I must own that they lead the life they do
because they love it. They always protest that nothing but their ignorance
of our tongue prevents them from practicing some mechanical trade. "What
work could be harder," they ask, "than carrying this organ about all day?"
but while I answer with honesty that nothing can be more irksome, I feel
that they only pretend a disgust with it, and that they really like organ-
grinding, if for no other reason than that they are the children of the
summer, and it takes them into the beloved open weather. One of my
friends, at least, who in the warmer months is to all appearance a