I do not say that he drew me out, but he gave me opportunities
to show myself in the broadest and best lights. This truly might be said
to be good listening; it produced good speech.
Day after day I became better and better satisfied with Chester Walkirk,
and it is seldom that I have enjoyed myself more than in talking to him.
I am sure that it gave me more actual pleasure to tell him what I had
seen and what I had done than I had felt in seeing and doing those
things. This may appear odd, but it is a fact. I readily revived in
myself the emotions that accompanied my experiences, and to these
recalled emotions was added the sympathetic interest of another.
In other ways Walkirk won my favor. He was good-natured and intelligent,
and showed that he was anxious to please me not only as a listener, but
as a companion, or, I might better say, as an associate inmate of my
study. What he did not know in this respect he set himself diligently to
learn.
VI.
MY UNDER-STUDY.
In talking about my travels to Chester Walkirk, I continued for a time
to treat the subject in the same desultory manner in which I had related
my experiences to my first listener; but the superior intelligence, and
I may say the superior attention, of Walkirk acted upon me as a
restraint as well as an incentive.
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