"You must marry," they said to him.
"When one rises from the dead," he replied. At length,
his friends grew tired of helping him and gave him up, and he dropped out
and settled down. Commiseration is one of the bitter things of life.
But Floyd had what is harder to bear than that. It did not affect his work.
It was only his health and his life that suffered. He was like a man
who has lost the senses of touch and taste and sight. If he minded it,
he did not show it. One can get used to being bedridden.
One thing about him was that he always appeared poor. He began to be known
as an inventor and writer. It was known that he received high prices for
what he did; but he appeared to be no better off than when he made nothing.
Some persons supposed that he gambled; others whispered that he spent it
in other dissipation. In fact, one lady gave a circumstantial account
of the way he squandered his money, and declared herself very glad
that he had never visited her daughters. When this was repeated to Floyd,
he said he fortunately did not have to account to her for the way
he spent his money. He felt that the woman out under the marble cross
knew how his money went, and so did the little cousin who was named after her,
and who was at school.
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