A thought came into McGregor's mind that he wanted to discuss with the older man. He was moved by the sight of women about and shook himself like one awakening from a dream. Then he began looking at the ground and kicking up the gravel with his foot. “Look here,” he said, turning to the barber, “what is a man to do about women, about getting what he wants from the women?”
The barber seemed to understand. “It has come to that then?” he asked and looked quickly up. He lighted a pipe and sat looking at the people. It was then he told McGregor of the wife and four children in the Ohio town, describing the little brick house and the garden and the coop for chickens at the back like one who lingers over a place dear to his fancy. Something old and weary was in his voice as he finished.
“It wasn't a matter for me to decide,” he said. “I came away because I couldn't do anything else. I'm not excusing myself, I'm just telling you. There was something messy and disorderly about it all, about my life with her and with them. I couldn't stand it. I felt myself being submerged by something. I wanted to be orderly and to work, you see. I couldn't let violin making alone. Lord, how I tried--tried bluffing myself about it--calling it a fad.”
The barber looked nervously at McGregor to reassure himself of his interest. “I owned a shop on the main street of our town. Back of it was a blacksmith shop. During the day I stood by the chair in my shop talking to men being shaved about the love of women and a man's duty to his family. Summer afternoons I went and sat on a keg in the blacksmith shop and talked of the same thing with the smith but all that did me no good.
“When I let myself go I dreamed not of my duty to my family but of working undisturbed as I do now here in the city in my room in the evenings and on Sundays.”
A sharpness came into the voice of the speaker. He turned to McGregor and talked vigorously like one making a defence. “My woman was a good enough sort,” he said. “I suppose loving is an art like writing a book or drawing pictures or making violins. People try to do it and don't succeed. In the end we threw the job up and just lived together like most people do. Our lives got mussy and meaningless. That's how it was.