"Ever study the anatomy of a gasoline engine?" he asked.
"I know something about the anatomy of cows and pigs and hens," I said, "but I suppose a gasoline engine is somewhat different."
He tinkered away industriously for a moment, and when I continued to stand there watching him, he inquired solemnly:
"No," I said, just as solemnly, "but neither can a gasoline engine cackle."
I shall never forget the sight of Nort as he slowly rose to a sitting position and looked me over--especially the smile of him and the gleam in his eyes. There was a dab of oil on his nose and smudges on his chin, but he took me in.
So this was the person who had appeared without a hat on our highly respectable streets, and got his shame heralded in the paper! I felt like saying to him:
"Well, you're a cheerful reprobate, I must say!"
You see, we are nearly all of us shocked by the cheerfulness of the wicked. We feel that those whom we have set aside as reprobates, or sinful spectacles, should by good right draw long faces and be appropriately miserable; and we never become quite accustomed to our own surprise at finding them happy or contented.
In short, I began to be interested in that reprobate, in spite of myself. I had come to town intending to have a talk with Anthy and the old Captain (who was at this moment at work at his desk), but instead I squatted down on the floor near Nort, and while he tinkered and puttered and whistled, we kept up a running conversation which we both found highly diverting.
If there is one thing I enjoy more than another it is to crack open a hard fellow-mortal, take him apart, as Nort was taking apart his engine, and see what it is that makes him go round. But in Nort, that morning, I found more than a match. We parried and fenced, advanced and retreated, but beyond a firm conclusion on my part that he was no ordinary tramp printer and, indeed, no ordinary human being, he kept me completely mystified, and, as I could plainly see, enjoyed doing it, too. He told me, long afterward, that he thought me that morning an "odd one."
I deny, however, that I was carried away on the spot; I was interested, but I was now too deeply concerned for my friends on the _Star_ to accept him entirely. Even after he brought in his first contribution to our columns, especially the one that began, "There is a man in this town who quarrels regularly with his wife," I was still doubtful about him--but I must not get ahead of my story.