I never had the heart myself to deny the old man's miser yarn.

When I do talk, I try to say as little as possible and keep my two feet solidly on the ground." He watched Kenny down the steps and into the buggy.
"Humph!" said the little doctor.

"Thought he had his fingers on a regular swap-dollinger of a mystery, didn't he?
To my thinking, the only mystery in the farmhouse is himself!" And Kenny, climbing into the buggy in hot rebellion, felt that he had come decked out gorgeously in rainbow balloons.

And the doctor, practical and unromantic, had pushed a weary finger through them, one by one, watching them collapse with his bored and kindly smile of understanding.

Life after all, reflected Kenny irritably, was a matter of adjectives and any man was at the mercy of his biographer.