Most people
never hear the Word at all."
He paused a moment and then continued:
"It's a curious thing, Mister--perhaps you've noticed it yourself--that
the best things of all in the world people won't have as a gift."
"I've noticed it," I said.
"It's strange, isn't it?" he again remarked.
"Very strange," I said.
"I don't know's I can blame them," he continued. "I was that way myself
for a good many years: all around me gold and diamonds and precious
jewels, and me never once seeing them. All I had to do was to stoop and
take them--but I didn't do it."
I saw that I had met a philosopher, and I decided that I would stop and
wrestle with him and not let him go without his story--something like
Jacob, wasn't it, with the angel?
"Do you do all this without payment?"
He looked at me in an injured way.
"Who'd pay me?" he asked. "Mostly people think me a sort of fool. Oh, I
know, but I don't mind. I live by the Word. No, nobody pays me: I am
paying myself."
By this time he was ready to start. So I said, "Friend, I'm going your
way, and I'll walk with you."
So we set off together down the hill.
"You see, sir," he said, "when a man has got the best thing in the
world, and finds it's free, he naturally wants to let other people know
about it.
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