Adventures in Contentment

It was beautiful to see commonplace facts grow phosphorescent in the heat of true feeling. How little we may come to know Romance by the cloak she wears and how humble must be he who would surprise the heart of her! It was, indeed, with an indescribable thrill that I heard him add the details, one by one--the mortgage on his place, now rapidly being paid off, the brother who was a plumber, the mother-in-law who was not a mother-in-law of the comic papers. And finally he showed us the picture of the wife and baby that he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby with its head resting on its mother's shoulder. "Mister," he said, "p'raps you think it's fun to ride around the country like I do, and be away from home most of the time. But it ain't. When I think of Minnie and the kid--" He broke off sharply, as if he had suddenly remembered the shame of such confidences. "Say," he asked, "what page is that poem on?" I told him. "One forty-six," he said. "When I get home I'm going to read that to Minnie. She likes poetry and all such things. And where's that other piece that tells how a man feels when he's lonesome? Say, that fellow knew!" We had a genuinely good time, the agent and I, and when he finally rose to go, I said: "Well, I've sold you a new book." "I see now, mister, what you mean."