"Can't remember when I wouldn't have preferred to meet some other fellow in the looking-glass.

It's such an awful thing, the intimacy with himself that's forced on a man when he comes into this world." "That's so," assented Amidon, rather stupidly, but he was not to be abashed with the other man's metaphysics.

Rosenstein did credit to his German ancestry at times, and was then in deep waters for his village acquaintances.
"Who would you ruther meet in the lookin'-glass than yerself ?" pursued Amidon.
"Not you," replied Rosenstein, with unexpected repartee, and was going out amid a chorus of glee at Amidon's discomfiture when another man darkened the doorway, and the storekeeper fell back as Captain Carroll entered amid a sullen silence.
The postmaster rose, and in a second the small man and Amidon followed his example.

Carroll greeted them all with a cordiality which had in it a certain implication of admiring confidence.

Not a man there but felt at once that this new-comer had a most flattering recognition of himself in particular, to the exclusion of all the others.