se on his window-glass. It was a
gay little shop (he called it "an Emporium"), as barber shops generally
are, decorated with circus bills, tinted prints, and gaudy fly-catchers
of tissue and gold paper. Sol Holmes--whose antecedents to us boys were
wrapped in thrilling mystery, we imagined him to have been a prince in
his native land--was a colored man, not too dark "for human nature's
daily food," and enjoyed marked distinction as one of the few exotics
in town. At this juncture the foreign element was at its minimum; every
official, from selectman down to the Dogberry of the watch, bore a
name that had been familiar to the town for a hundred years or so.
The situation is greatly changed. I expect to live to see a Chinese
policeman, with a sandal-wood club and a rice-paper pocket handkerchief,
patrolling Congress Street.

Holmes was a handsome man, six feet or more in height, and as straight
as a pine. He possessed his race's sweet temper, simplicity, and vanity.
His martial bearing was a positive factor in the effectiveness of the
Portsmouth Greys, whenever those bloodless warriors paraded. As he
brought up the rear of the last platoon, with his infantry cap stuck
jauntily on the left side of his head and a bright silver cup slung on
a belt at his hip, he seemed to youthful eyes one of the most imposing
things in the display. To himself he was pretty much "all the company."
He used to say, with a drollness which did not strike me until years
afterwards, "Boys, I and Cap'n Towle is goin' to trot out 'the Greys'
to-morroh." Though strictly honest in all business dealings, his
tropical imagination, whenever he strayed into the fenceless fields of
autobiography, left much to be desired in the way of accuracy. Compared
with Sol Holmes on such occasions, Ananias was a person of morbid
integrity. Sol Holmes's tragic end was in singular contrast with his
sunny temperament. One night, long ago, he threw himself from the deck
of a Sound steamer, somewhere between Stonington and New York. What led
or drove him to the act never transpired.

There are few men who were boys in Portsmouth at the period of which I
write but will remember Wibird Penhallow and his sky-blue wheelbarrow.
I find it difficult to describe him other than vaguely, possibly because
Wilbird had no expression whatever in his countenance. With his vacant
white face lifted to the clouds, seemingly oblivious of everything, yet
going with a sort of heaven-given ins