160 THE LAND'S END 



in his mind, but he did not appear to think there was 

 anything very funny in it. But the extraordinary 

 thing was that after he had quite got over the un- 

 comfortable feeling I had given him the suspicion, 

 perhaps, that his interlocutor was not quite right in 

 his head he proved as lively and agreeable a talker 

 as I have met among the Cornish people of his class, 

 and gave me an entertaining account of the various 

 occupations he had followed since the tin-mine in 

 which he had worked as a boy had been abandoned. 

 He was, in fact, a very intelligent fellow, with nice 

 feelings and sentiments, and as pleasant to talk with 

 as any one could be without a sense of humour. 



When we look for something and find it not our 

 non-success is apt to produce a dogged spirit in us 

 and we go on looking even after our reason has 

 assured us that the object sought for is not there, or 

 has no existence. That is how it was with me ; I 

 was determined to find that rarity in Cornwall a 

 man with a sense of humour. And in my quest 1 

 did not hold my tongue about my encounter with the 

 stone-digger ; I told it to at least a dozen persons 

 and they one and all received it coldly. The last one 

 was a farmer ; he listened attentively, then after an 

 interval of silence remarked, " Yes, I see ; the man 

 did not understand your question in the sense you 

 meant. It was a joke and he took it seriously ; I 



see." 



He saw but he didn't smile, and I thereupon re- 

 solved never again to tell the story of the man digging 

 granite in a ploughed field to any one in Cornwall. 



