e whose likeness I cannot recall when they are
out of my sight. When you are out in the fields and I try to recall your
face, another acquaintance always comes to mind--some one who doesn't
really look like you, but whom you resemble nevertheless.

MR. Y. Who is that?

MR. X. I won't mention the name. However, I used to have dinner at the
same place for many years, and there at the lunch counter I met a little
blond man with pale, worried eyes. He had an extraordinary faculty
of getting about in a crowded room without shoving or being shoved.
Standing at the door, he could reach a slice of bread two yards away; he
always looked as if he was happy to be among people, and whenever he ran
into an acquaintance he would fall into rapturous laughter, embrace him,
and do the figure eight around him, and carry on as if he hadn't met a
human being for years; if any one stepped on his toes he would smile as
if he were asking pardon for being in the way. For two years I used to
see him, and I used to amuse myself trying to figure out his business
and character, but I never asked any one who he was,--I didn't want to
know, as that would have put an end to my amusement. That man had the
same indefinable characteristics as you; sometimes I would make him out
an undergraduate teacher, an under officer, a druggist, a government
clerk, or a detective, and like you, he seemed to be made up of two
different pieces and the front didn't fit the back. One day I happened
to read in the paper about a big forgery by a well-known civil official.
After that I found out that my indefinable acquaintance had been the
companion of the forger's brother, and that his name was Straman; and
then I was informed that the afore-mentioned Straman had been connected
with a free library, but that he was then a police reporter on a big
newspaper. How could I then get any connection between the forgery, the
police, and the indefinable man's appearance? I don't know, but when I
asked a man if Straman had ever been convicted, he answered neither yes
nor no--he didn't know. [Pause.]

MR. Y. Well, was he ever--convicted?

MR. X. No, he had not been convicted.

[Pause.]

MR. Y. You mean that was why keeping close to the police had such
attraction for him, and why he was so afraid of bumping into people?

MR. X. Yes.

MR. Y. Did you get to know him afterward?

MR. X. No, I didn't want to.

MR. Y. Would you have allowed yourself to know him if he had been