t you appear like a fearless sort of fellow, one meeting his
fate with bared breast, but from behind--really, I don't want to
be impolite, but--you look as if you were carrying a burden, or as
if you were crouching to escape a raised stick. And when I look at
that red cross your suspenders make on your white shirt--well, it
looks to me like some kind of emblem, like a trade-mark on a
packing-box--

MR. Y. I feel as if I'd choke--if the storm doesn't break soon--

MR. X. It's coming--don't you worry!--And your neck! It looks as
if there ought to be another kind of face on top of it, a face
quite different in type from yours. And your ears come so close
together behind that sometimes I wonder what race you belong to.
[A flash of lightning lights up the room] Why, it looked as if
that might have struck the sheriff's house!

MR. Y. [Alarmed] The sheriff's!

MR. X. Oh, it just looked that way. But I don't think we'll get
much of this storm. Sit down now and let us have a talk, as you
are going away to-morrow. One thing I find strange is that you,
with whom I have become so intimate in this short time--that yon
are one of those whose image I cannot call up when I am away from
them. When you are not here, and I happen to think of you, I
always get the vision of another acquaintance--one who does not
resemble you, but with whom you have certain traits in common.

MR. Y. Who is he?

MR. X. I don't want to name him, but--I used for several years to
take my meals at a certain place, and there, at the side-table
where they kept the whiskey and the otter preliminaries, I met a
little blond man, with blond, faded eyes. He had a wonderful
faculty for making his way through a crowd, without jostling
anybody or being jostled himself. And from his customary place
down by the door he seemed perfectly able to reach whatever he
wanted on a table that stood some six feet away from him. He
seemed always happy just to be in company. But when he met anybody
he knew, then the joy of it made him roar with laughter, and he
would hug and pat the other fellow as if he hadn't seen a human
face for years. When anybody stepped on his foot, he smiled as if
eager to apologise for being in the way. For two years I watched
him and amused myself by guessing at his occupation and character.
But I never asked who he was; I didn't want to know, you see, for
then all the fun would have been spoiled at once. That man had
just your quality of being indef