Now he smiled,
but only with his lips--he made it seem like a mere Swedish exercise or
something, and the next second his face looked as if it had been sewed
up for the winter.
"'Little starry-eyed gypsy, I say, when are you going to pull some of
that open-road stuff?' says Ben again, all cordial and sinister.
"Wilfred gulped and tried to be jaunty. 'Oh, as to that, I'm here to-day
and there to-morrow,' he murmurs, and nervously fixes his necktie.
"'Oh, my, and isn't that nice!' says Ben heartily--'the urge of the wild
to her wayward child'--I know you're a slave to it. And now you're going
to tell us all about the open road, and then you and I are going to have
an intimate chat and I'll tell you about it--about some of the dearest
little open roads you ever saw, right round in these parts. I've just
counted nine, all leading out of town to the cunningest mountains and
glens that would make you write poetry hours at a time, with Nature's
glad fruits and nuts and a mug of spring water and some bottled beer and
a ham and some rump steak--'
"The stillness of that group had become darned painful, I want to tell
you.
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