I went and confronted him, and asked to know his business, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seething political-economy ideas, and not let them break away from me or get tangled in their harness.

And privately I wished the stranger was in the bottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him.

I was all in a fever, but he was cool.

He said he was sorry to disturb me, but as he was passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods.

I said, "Yes, yes--go on--what about it ?" He said there was nothing about it, in particular--nothing except that he would like to put them up for me.
I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-houses all my life.