attack that his mind is unhinged. He imagines—ha, ha!—that he's a farmer! Now you two sit down and exchange symptoms. I have to get back to the office." [Pg 64] [Pg 64] I treated Griggs with distant civility, not because he was thrust upon me, but because it usually takes me a year or more to get beyond formalities with an acquaintance. But Griggs was impervious to hauteur; he was unconstrained and hearty enough for two. I could see that Harold had spoken the truth in his case, for his farming mania was at its height, and he was overjoyed at finding a man who had done what he merely dreamed of doing. He was a produce commission merchant, he told me, and he was convinced that he could double his income and prolong his life by running a farm in connection with his business. It was a simple proposition, he stated, that a child could grasp. A farmer makes a profit by farming, a commission merchant by commissioning; therefore, if the merchant were also a farmer would he not absorb both profits? Griggs tilted his chair, hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, and challenged me to point out a flaw in his theory. I declined, for the simple reason, I said, that it was flawless; then I rose to make my escape.[Pg 65] Griggs adjured me to sit down for a minute; he had a few questions to ask, and I was the man of all men to give him the information he sought. [Pg 65] Now a stitch in time, it is said, saves nine; a lie, a little one, a mere clerical plea of a pressing engagement, would have saved ninety or more. Had I not instinctively refrained from loosening one stitch in my garment of righteousness it would not have been torn to tatters. I hesitated; I sat down; I was lost. Griggs grew friendly, more friendly, affectionate; he addressed me by my surname, and I realized that I was in the clutches of the objectionable type of person who claps you on the back at the second meeting, and demands with a boisterous laugh, "How goes it, old man?" Beginning with generalities pertaining to agriculture, he questioned me searchingly upon my private affairs. I can parry, and occasionally thrust—but not against a battering-ram. Grigg's questions were not to be evaded. I could have declined point-blank to answer, thus intimating that he was[Pg 66] a boor, but that would have been unpleasant to me—perhaps not to Griggs. I could have followed my natural inclination by telling the truth, but I recoiled
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