14/24 He was learning New York ways--a new lesson each day, and intended to keep on, but not by keeping his mouth shut. "They must never be allowed to bite them, of course. You can wound a truffle as you can everything else." Mason looked off into space and the Colonel bent his ear. Purviance's diet had been largely drawn from his beloved Chesapeake, and "dug-up dead things"-- as he called the subject under discussion--didn't interest him. He wanted to laugh--came near it--then he suddenly remembered how important a man Hodges might be and how necessary it was to give him air space in which to float his pet balloons and so keep him well satisfied with himself. |