"Isn't he a droll person?" thought Dickey. "He never stops with me more
than ten minutes at a time but what he either loses his head or runs
away."
By that time the Itinerant Tinker had come up to where Dickey stood. He
sat wearily down on a boulder by the wayside, removed some of the
heavier merchandise from off his back, and proceeded to mop his face
vigorously with a great red handkerchief. Dickey waited several minutes
for the old man to speak; but the Itinerant Tinker only regarded him
solemnly. He did not even smile.
"It's very warm work, sir," ventured Dickey, at last, "carrying all that
stuff--isn't it?"
"Stuff?" returned the Itinerant Tinker, in a very mild, but unmistakably
hurt tone of voice.
"Well--" Dickey hesitated timidly.
"_Don't_ call them stuff, please," sighed the Itinerant Tinker; "call
them necessary commodities."
"But whatever one _does_ call them," Dickey persisted, "they still make
you warm to carry them all about, don't they?"
The Itinerant Tinker nodded his head and sighed again.
Again Dickey waited for a considerable space of time. But the old man
would have been perfectly content to sit there for ever, Dickey thought,
without speaking. "I _do_ wish he would talk," said he to himself.
"It's awfully annoying to have him sit there and look at one without
saying a word.
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