The _Harvest Moon_ lay rolling a half mile out. I took arowboat and rowed out. When I drew near, I saw Sadler standing by therail with the yellow nozzle of a hose pipe pushed forward, and shadinghis eyes against the glint of the water. When he saw it was me hetook me aboard. But he was thoughtful and depressed. He sat himselfon the rail and dangled his boots over the water and described hisstate of mind.

"What makes a man act so?" he says. "There's my fellow-man. Look athim! I'm sorry for him. Most of him had hard luck to be born, and yetwhen he gets in my way I just walk all over him. I can't help it.He's leathery and he's passive, my fellow-man. He goes to sleep inthe middle of the road. When I ketch one of him, I kicks a hole inhis trousers first, and then it occurs to me, 'My sufferin' brother!This is too bad!' Why, Pete Hillary was one of the dumbdest andleatheriest, and here's the Mayor's pink sojers been fillin' me withjoy and sorrow, till I laughed from eleven till twelve, and beensheddin' tears ever since. Irish's been three times around his rosarybefore he got the scare kinks out of him, and between Irish bein'pathetic, and the Mayor and his sojers comin' out pink and going backjammed to the colour of canned salmon, my feelin's is worked up tobust. What makes a man act so? It must be he has cats in him."

He pulled his moustache and looked gloomy, and I judged his remorsewas sincere. I says:

"That's what I don't put together. Why, Kid, look here! If you feelas bad as that three-for-a-cent requiem to Pete Hillary sounded, it'scats all right. It's the same kind that light on back fences and feelsick, and express themselves by clawing faces," I says, "andblaspheming the moon with sounds that never ought to be. That whatyou mean by 'cats in him'?"

"Precise, Tommy, precise."