"Why, that bush is so dry," he said, "that once when I lighted it to
cook my bacon for breakfast it traveled so fast that by the time my
bacon was cooked I was five miles from camp."
I laughed - I couldn't help it when I imagined that six-footer traveling
across the desert with a frying pan over that low bush. I laughed
because it was so real to me, but he misunderstood, and said so sort of
hurt, "Don't you believe me?"
And I told him I did. And I did. And I do. Five miles isn't a great
distance to travel over the desert after one's bacon.
Mr. Mazzini and Dante
Mr. Mazzini will never be rich. He takes too much time for philosophy
and gossiping with the women, and he loves a joke too well, and his
heart is too kind. He is a universal type, as old as the world is old,
Theocritus knew him well.
"You pick me out some good cantaloupes," I said with deadly tact, and
Mr. Mazzini answered that it couldn't be done and that melons were like
men, that there was no sure way of picking them out for their kindness
of heart. Then he took time over the melons to tell me how his mother in
Italy, who was evidently something of a match-maker, had gotten fooled
on a young man who was both "laze" and "steenge" in his youth but who
made a very good husband.
One day it was figs, and I was strong for the nice appearing ones, but
Mr.
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