rior, a certain air of refinement
pervaded everything. Even the old man's bare feet did not detract from it.
These, by the way, he never referred to; it was evidently a habit with
him. I felt this refinement not only in the relics of what seemed to
denote better days, but in the arrangement of the table, the placing of
the tea tray and the providing of a separate pot for the hot water. Their
voices, too, were low, characteristic of people who live alone and in
peace,--especially the old man's.

Brockway resumed his seat and continued talking, asking about the city as
if it were a thousand miles away instead of being almost at his door; of
the artists,--their mode of life, their successes, etc. As he talked his
eye brightened and his manner became more gentle. It was only his outside
that seemed to belong to an old boatman, roughened by the open air, with
hands hard and brown. Yet these were well shaped, with tapering fingers.
One bore a gold ring curiously marked and worn to a thread.

I asked about the fishing, hoping the subject would lead him to talk of
his own life, and so solve the doubt in my mind as to his class and
antecedents. His replies showed his thorough knowledge of his trade. He
deplored the scarcity of bass, now that the steamboats and factories
fouled the river; the decrease of the oysters, of which he had several
beds, all being injured by the same cause. Then he broke out against the
encroachments of the real estate pirates, as he called them, staking out
lots behind the Hulk and destroying his privacy.

"But you own the marsh?" I asked carelessly. I saw instantly in his face
the change working in his mind. He looked at me searchingly, almost
fiercely, and said, weighing each word,--

"Not one foot, young man,--do you hear?--not one foot! Own nothing but
what you see. But this hulk is mine,--mine from the mud to the ridgepole,
with every rotten timber in it."

The outburst was so sudden that I rose from my chair. For a moment he
seemed consumed with an inward rage,--not directed to me in any
way,--more as if the memory of some past wrong had angered him.

Here the child, with an anxious face, rose quickly from her seat by the
window, and laid her hand on his.

The old man looked into her face for a moment, and then, as if her touch
had softened him, rose courteously, took her arm, seated her at the table
and then me. In a moment more he had regained his gentle manner.

The meal was a frugal on