A week ago he had been interested in the minor details of life; to-night he felt that they bored him profoundly.
"If you knew what you were saying you'd hold your tongue," he retorted angrily.
"Ain't you goin' to eat yo' supper ?" inquired Sarah anxiously, "that herrin' is real nice and brown." "I don't want anything.

I'm not hungry." "Mebbe you'd like one of the brandied peaches I'm savin' for Christmas ?" "No, I'm dead beat.

I'll go up to sleep pretty soon." "Do you want a fire?
I can lay one in a minute." He shook his head, not impatiently, but as one to whom brandied peaches and wood fires are matters of complete indifference.
"I've got to see about something in the stable first.

Then I'll go to bed." Taking down a lantern from a nail by the door, he went out, as was his nightly habit, to look at his grey mare Hannah.

When he came in again and stumbled up the narrow staircase to his room, he found that Sarah had been before him and kindled a blaze from resinous pine on the two bricks in the fireplace.