[p3]
MR. OPP
I
“
hope your passengerhasn’t missed histrain,” observed the ferrymanto Mr. JimmyFallows, who sat on theriver bank with thepainter of his rickety little naphthalaunch held loosely in his hand.
“Mr. Opp?” said Jimmy. “I bet hedid. If there is one person in the worldthat’s got a talent for missing things,it’s Mr. Opp. I never seen him that hehadn’t just missed gettin’ a thousanddollar job, or inventin’ a patent, or bein’hurt when he had took out a accidentpolicy. If he did ketch a train, likeenough it was goin’ the wrong way.”
[p4]
Jimmy had been waiting since nine inthe morning, and it was now well pastnoon. He was a placid gentleman ofcurvilinear type, short of limb and largeof girth. His trousers, of that morosehue termed by the country people“plum,” reached to his armpits, and hishat, large and felt and weather-beaten,was only prevented from eclipsing hishead by the stubborn resistance of twosmall, knob-like ears.
“Mr. Opp ain’t been back to the Covefor a long while, has he?” asked the ferryman,whose intellectual life dependedsolely upon the crumbs of informationscattered by chance pa