“Rather a fine distinction,” remarked his hearer, smiling.

“Yes, sir,” said David.  “Now, there’s old maid Allis, relative of the Rogerses, lives all alone down on Clark Street in an old house that hain’t had a coat o’ paint or a new shingle sence the three Thayers was hung, an’ she talks about the folks next door, both sides, that she’s knowed alwus, as ‘village people,’ and I don’t believe,” asserted the speaker, “she was ever away f’m Homeville two weeks in the hull course of her life.  She’s a putty decent sort of a woman too,” Mr. Harum admitted.  “If the’ was a death in the house she’d go in an’ help, but she wouldn’t never think of askin’ one on ’em to tea.”

“I suppose you have heard it said,” remarked John, laughing, “that it takes all sorts of people to make a world.”

“I think I hev heard a rumor to that effect,” said David, “an’ I guess the’ ‘s about as much human nature in some folks as the’ is in others, if not more.”

“And I don’t fancy that it makes very much difference to you,” said John, “whether the Verjooses or Miss Allis call you ‘village people’ or not.”

“Don’t cut no figger at all,” declared Mr. Harum.  “Polly ’n I are too old to set up fer shapes even if we wanted to.  A good fair road-gait ’s good enough fer me; three square meals, a small portion of the ’filthy weed,’ as it’s called in po’try, a hoss ’r two, a ten-dollar note where you c’n lay your hand on’t, an’ once in a while, when your consciunce pricks ye, a little somethin’ to permote the cause o’ temp’rence, an’ make the inwurd moniter quit jerkin’ the reins—­wa’al, I guess I c’n git along, heh?”

“Yes,” said John, by way of making some rejoinder, “if one has all one needs it is enough.”

“Wa’al, yes,” observed the philosopher, “that’s so, as you might say, up to a certain point, an’ in some ways.  I s’pose a feller could git along, but at the same time I’ve noticed that, gen’ally speakin’, a leetle too big ’s about the right size.”

“I am told,” said John, after a pause in which the conversation seemed to be dying out for lack of fuel, and apropos of nothing in particular, “that Homeville is quite a summer resort.”

“Quite a consid’able,” responded Mr. Harum.  “It has ben to some extent fer a good many years, an’ it’s gettin’ more an’ more so all the time, only diff’rent.  I mean,” he said, “that the folks that come now make more show an’ most on ’em who ain’t visitin’ their relations either has places of their own or hires ’em fer the summer.  One time some folks used to come an’ stay at the hotel.  The’ was quite a fair one then,” he explained; “but it burned up, an’ wa’n’t never built up agin because it had got not to be thought the fash’nable thing to put up there.  Mis’ Robinson (Dug’s wife), an’ Mis’ Truman, ’round on Laylock Street, has some fam’lies that come an’ board with them ev’ry year, but that’s about all the boardin’ the’ is nowdays.”  Mr. Harum stopped and looked at his companion thoughtfully for a moment, as if something had just occurred to him.