"Are you always like this?" said Roderick, in almost sepulchral accents.
"Like this?" repeated Singleton, blinking confusedly, with an alarmed
conscience.
"You remind me of a watch that never runs down. If one listens hard one
hears you always--tic-tic, tic-tic."
"Oh, I see," said Singleton, beaming ingenuously. "I am very equable."
"You are very equable, yes. And do you find it pleasant to be equable?"
Singleton turned and grinned more brightly, while he sucked the water
from his camel's-hair brush. Then, with a quickened sense of his
indebtedness to a Providence that had endowed him with intrinsic
facilities, "Oh, delightful!" he exclaimed.
Roderick stood looking at him a moment. "Damnation!" he said at last,
solemnly, and turned his back.
One morning, shortly after this, Rowland and Roderick took a long walk.
They had walked before in a dozen different directions, but they had not
yet crossed a charming little wooded pass, which shut in their valley
on one side and descended into the vale of Engelberg. In coming from
Lucerne they had approached their inn by this path, and, feeling that
they knew it, had hitherto neglected it in favor of untrodden ways.
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