I'm glad you've got away from it."
All this was getting rather intricate for me. I set it down
as I remember it, inaccurately perhaps. My governess days are
pretty far astern now, and my line is common sense rather than
literary allusions. I said something of the sort.
"Common sense?" he repeated. "Good Lord, ma'am, sense is the
most uncommon thing in the world. I haven't got it. I don't
believe your brother has, from what you say. Bock here has
it. See how he trots along the road, keeps an eye on the
scenery, and minds his own business. I never saw him get into
a fight yet. Wish I could say the same of myself. I named him
after Boccaccio, to remind me to read the `Decameron' some day."
"Judging by the way you talk," I said, "you ought to be quite
a writer yourself."
"Talkers never write. They go on talking."
There was a considerable silence. Mifflin relit his pipe and
watched the landscape with a shrewd eye. I held the reins
loosely, and Peg ambled along with a steady clop-clop.
Parnassus creaked musically, and the mid-afternoon sun lay
rich across the road. We passed another farm, but I did not
suggest stopping as I felt we ought to push on. Mifflin
seemed lost in meditation, and I began to wonder, a little
uneasily, how the adventure would turn out.
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