I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted with
things as they are. There is nothing new under the sun, and all is
vanity and vexation of spirit. Also, I am fronting the forks of a
dilemma: Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield to
the _Wanderlust_ and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls
'tramping,' or shall I stay here yet awhile? I can't make up my
mind!"
"Do you want to go?"
"Yes and no. Hold: let's toss for it and let the fall of the coin
decide." He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, and
showed it me.
"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay," he said, and tossed it into the air.
It fell beside me, out of his reach. With a swift hand I picked it
up.
"Well?" he asked, indifferently.
My hand shut down upon it. There was the sound of wind in my ears,
and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred. Then somebody--oh,
surely not I!--in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke:
"_You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik_," said the voice, pleasantly.
"_It is tails._"
And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly:
"Oh, _liar! liar! It is heads!_"
Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute,
but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles
of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real
brook.
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