"We always think," I answered, "that it is like Essex."

He pondered for a moment, enjoying his pipe.

"Well, it is," he decided. "You mean looking over Staten Island to the
sea? Yes, only they're busier here than along Mersea Flats, eh? Oh yes,
I used to know that part when I was a boy. There isn't much between
Chipping Barnet and Hamford Water that I didn't know in those days."

"You will go back some day?" I said as we turned. A change came over
his face, and he put his hand to his chin.

"No," he said. "I'll never go back there. I'm here"--he waved his
pipe--"for keeps."

I looked at him in astonishment.

"Why?" I said, a little indignantly. "Are you not an Englishman?"

For a moment he did not reply to the blunt question, but looked down at
the flags. His feet were cased in red velvet slippers, I noticed, and
they struck me as quite indescribably bizarre in the moonlight. His
hesitation was too ominous, heavy with unimaginable complexities. His
voice was muffled when he spoke.

"No," he said. "I'm--an alien."

At first I was impressed by the tone more than the words. It was
mournful, with a streak of satisfaction in his condition that I felt was
assumed.

"You mean," I said at last, "that you intend to take out papers?"

He looked at me queerly.

"How long would it take," he inquired with a smile, "to put in five
years' residence, when I'm in the country about three days every two
months? No, I don't think I'll bother about papers. When I say I'm here
for keeps, I mean those belonging to me."

"There is a question I would like to ask you," I said, tentatively.

"I shall be very glad to answer it if I can," he replied.

"It refers to your little boys."

"Why," he broke in, "they haven't been annoying you, have they? I hope
they haven't done that!"

"Not at all. I merely had a curiosity to know why they bear such unusual
names."

He smiled.

"They told you their names, did they?"

"They were good enough to commend me for the way I played Indian," I
explained, and he gave me another of his quick comprehensive glances.

"It's rather a long story you've asked for," he said.

"I am interested in stories," I put in.

"Beppo said you made pictures," he mused.

"In words," I added.

He paused again. It seemed to be a part of his mode of thinking, this
occasional parenthesis of silence. It was almost as though the man were
leading me down a vast and dimly-lit corridor, laying his hand at t