"
Ashe made his first vocal contribution.
"If you're going to be about here for awhile," said he pleasantly,
"you'll find it interesting to dodge about after things in the woods
with a gun. Keeps you fit, for one thing. Lots of company in a dog and a
gun. Is it a permanent undertaking, this missionary work of yours, Mr.
Thompson?"
"We hope to make it so," Mr. Thompson responded.
"I should say you've taken on the deuce of a job," Tommy commented
frankly.
Thompson had no inclination to dispute that. He had periods of thinking
so himself.
The conversation languished again.
Without ever having been aware of it Thompson's circle of friends and
acquaintances had been people of wordy inclination. Their thoughts
dripped unceasingly from their tongue's end like water from a leaky
faucet. He had never come in contact with a type of men who keep silent
unless they have something to say, who think more than they speak. The
spinster aunts had been voluble persons, full of small chatter, women of
no mental reservations whatever. The young men of his group had not been
much different. The reflective attitude as opposed to the discursive was
new to him. New and embarrassing. He felt impelled to talk, and while he
groped uncertainly for some congenial subject he grew more and more
acutely self-conscious.
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