"I'm fixin' to get into harness again." "Bein' sick has certainly produced a change of heart in you," his friend laughed.

"You're the last man I ever expected to see blowin' yourself--or anybody else to a taxicab! For that matter, I never heard of you bein' in ANY kind of a cab, 'less'n it might be when you been pall-bearer for somebody.

What's come over you ?" "Well, I got to turn over a new leaf, and that's a fact," Adams said.

"I got a lot to do, and the only way to accomplish it, it's got to be done soon, or I won't have anything to live on while I'm doing it." "What you talkin' about?
What you got to do except to get strong enough to come back to the old place ?" "Well----" Adams paused, then coughed, and said slowly, "Fact is, Charley Lohr, I been thinking likely I wouldn't come back." "What! What you talkin' about ?" "No," said Adams.

"I been thinking I might likely kind of branch out on my own account." "Well, I'll be doggoned!" Old Charley Lohr was amazed; he ruffled up his gray moustache with thumb and forefinger, leaving his mouth open beneath, like a dark cave under a tangled wintry thicket.