my baggage checked through; but generally I prefer to walk. I'm never
in a hurry, and I like to take my own route. I'm a mighty good walker.
I did think of getting up some kind of a pedestrian match with some
of your champion walkers, but it's no use; it'd only create an
excitement."

"How do people treat you usually?"

"Well, I can't complain. Snap me up for a tramp sometimes, or make
disagreeable remarks about me. But generally I get along well enough.
The undertakers are hardest on me. They say I exercise a depressing
influence on their business by setting a bad example to other people;
and one of 'em, over in Constantinople, he said a man who'd defrauded
about fifty-four generations of undertakers ought to be ashamed to
show his face in civilized society. But bless you, sonny, I don't mind
them. Business, you know, is business. It's perfectly natural for them
to feel that way about it; now, isn't it?"

"Will you have a cigar, after eating?"

"No; none for me. Raleigh wanted me to learn to smoke when he was in
Virginia, but I didn't care for it. You remember him, of course?
Oh no; I forgot how young you are. Pleasant man, but a little too
chimerical. I liked Columbus better. Nero was a man who'd've suited
you newspaper people. 'Most always a murder every day. And then that
fire in Rome when he fiddled; made a splendid report for the papers,
wouldn't it? Poor sort of a man, though. The only time I ever saw him
was when he was drowning his mother. Dropped the old lady over and let
her drift off as if he didn't care a cent."