“You see,” he said, “I am a busy man, Mr. Grayson—­and a happy man.”

So he set off down the road, and as he passed my house he began singing again in his high voice.  I walked away with a feeling of wonder, not unmixed with sorrow.  It was a strange case!

Gradually I became really acquainted with the bee-man, at first with the exuberant, confident, imaginative, home-going bee-man; far more slowly with the shy, reserved, townward-bound bee-man.  It was quite an adventure, my first talk with the shy bee-man.  I was driving home; I met him near the lower bridge.  I cudgeled my brain to think of some way to get at him.  As he passed, I leaned out and said: 

“Friend, will you do me a favour?  I neglected to stop at the post-office.  Would you call and see whether anything has been left for me in the box since the carrier started?’”

“Certainly,” he said, glancing up at me, but turning his head swiftly aside again.

On his way back he stopped and left me a paper.  He told me volubly about the way he would run the post-office if he were “in a place of suitable authority.”

“Great things are possible,” he said, “to the man of ideas.”

At this point began one of the by-plays of my acquaintance with the bee-man.  The exuberant bee-man referred disparagingly to the shy bee-man.

“I must have looked pretty seedy and stupid this morning on my way in.  I was up half the night; but I feel all right now.”

The next time I met the shy bee-man he on his part apologised for the exuberant bee-man—­hesitatingly, falteringly, winding up with the words, “I think you will understand.”  I grasped his hand, and left him with a wan smile on his face.  Instinctively I came to treat the two men in a wholly different manner.  With the one I was blustering, hail-fellow-well-met, listening with eagerness to his expansive talk; but to the other I said little, feeling my way slowly to his friendship, for I could not help looking upon him as a pathetic figure.  He needed a friend!  The exuberant bee-man was sufficient unto himself, glorious in his visions, and I had from him no little entertainment.

I told Harriet about my adventures:  they did not meet with her approval.  She said I was encouraging a vice.

“Harriet,” I said, “go over and see his wife.  I wonder what she thinks about it.”

“Thinks!” exclaimed Harriet.  “What should the wife of a drunkard think?”

But she went over.  As soon as she returned I saw that something was wrong, but I asked no questions.  During supper she was extraordinarily preoccupied, and it was not until an hour or more afterward that she came into my room.

“David,” she said, “I can’t understand some things.”

“Isn’t human nature doing what it ought to?” I asked.

But she was not to be joked with.