"He never quarrelled with one of them in his life," returned the Idiot. "He doesn't know them well enough to quarrel with them; in fact, I doubt if he ever sees them at all. He's very exclusive."
"Of course he is a born farmer to get everything the way he has it," suggested Mrs. Smithers.
"No, he isn't. He's a broker," said the Idiot, "and a very successful one. I see him on the street every day."
"Does he employ a man to run the farm?" asked the Clergyman.
"No," returned the Idiot, "he has too much sense and too few dollars to do any such foolish thing as that."
"It must be one of those self-winding stock farms," put in the School-master, scornfully. "But I don't see how he can be a successful broker and make money off his farm at the same time. Your statements do not agree, either. You said he never had to run for trains."
"Well, he never has," returned the Idiot, calmly. "He never goes near his farm. He doesn't have to. It's leased to the husband of the house-keeper whose daughter has a crush on the fire department. He takes his pay in produce, and gets more than if he took it in cash on the basis of the New York vegetable market."
"Then you have got us into an argument about country life that ends--" began the School-master, indignantly.
"That ends where it leaves off," retorted the Idiot, departing with a smile on his lips.
"He's an Idiot from Idaho," asserted the Bibliomaniac.
"Yes; but I'm afraid idiocy is a little contagious," observed the Doctor, with a grin and sidelong glance at the School-master.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," said the Idiot, as he seated himself at the breakfast-table and glanced over his mail.
"Good-morning yourself," returned the Poet. "You have an unusually large number of letters this morning. All checks, I hope?"
"Yes," replied the Idiot. "All checks of one kind or another. Mostly checks on ambition--otherwise, rejections from my friends the editors."
"You don't mean to say that you write for the papers?" put in the School-master, with an incredulous smile.
"I try to," returned the Idiot, meekly. "If the papers don't take 'em, I find them useful in curing my genial friend who imbibes of insomnia."
"What do you write--advertisements?" queried the Bibliomaniac.