He was about sixty-five years of age, venerable, with a white beard, his figure bent earthwards with hard work.
He was a narrow-minded man, painfully conscientious in his statements lest he should be unjust to somebody; a slow thinker, unable to let a subject drop when once he had started upon it.

He had no sooner uttered his remark about hard times than he was moved to qualify it.
"Hard times," he repeated, a troubled, perplexed note in his voice; "well, yes--yes.

I suppose the road DOES have hard times, maybe.
Everybody does--of course.

I didn't mean that exactly.

I believe in being just and fair to everybody.