If I ever sat down to read for ten minutes the cat would
get into the custard. No woman in the country sits down for fifteen
consecutive minutes between sunrise and sunset, anyway, unless
she has half a dozen servants. And nobody knows anything about
literature unless he spends most of his life sitting down. So
there you are.
The cultivation of philosophic reflection was a new experience for
me. Peg ambled along contentedly and the dog trailed under Parnassus
where I had tied him. I read "Vanity Fair" and thought about all
sorts of things. Once I got out to pick some scarlet maple leaves
that attracted me. The motors passing annoyed me with their dust
and noise, but by and by one of them stopped, looked at my outfit
curiously, and then asked to see some books. I put up the flaps for
them and we pulled off to one side of the road and had a good talk.
They bought two or three books, too.
By the time I neared Bath the hands of my watch pointed to supper.
I was still a bit shy of Mifflin's scheme of stopping overnight at
farmhouses, so I thought I'd go right into the town and look for a
hotel.
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