n that I fell into the arms of as admirable although
peculiar a man as I ever hope to meet, and communicative too. He was
one of those elderly men who keep their youth, largely by virtue of
cheerful spirits. He was short and active and he wore a cap. He had
sandy-grey hair and a touch of sandy-grey whisker; his eye was bright
and his cheeks were ruddy. He beamed with contentment. He may not have
been, as the diverting Mr. BERRY says in _Tina_, "fearfully crisp,"
but he was crisp enough.

Did he know Chiswick? Why, he had known it for nearly sixty years.
Then he knew HOGARTH'S House? No, he couldn't say he did, but, anyhow,
it must be in the other direction, because this, strictly speaking,
was Acton Green and not Chiswick at all. To get to Chiswick I ought to
have gone the other way. "But a depraved errand-boy----" I began to
say, and then realising that the recapitulation of other people's
errors is perhaps the idlest form of speech, where nearly all lack
necessity, I said instead that the natives did not seem to specialise
much in knowledge of their locality; to which he replied that they
ought to, for there was no more beautiful place in the world.

"I'm going in the direction you want, myself," he added. "The fact is
we're moving, and I've got to get some new blinds, and the shop's on
your way."

So we fell into step, I with great difficulty keeping up with his
happy buoyancy.

Yes, he admitted, moving was a trial, but his new house was far more
comfortable than the old one, and, after all, what's a little trouble?

This was a revolutionary enough remark, but when he went on to ask,
Wasn't it a lovely spring morning? I felt shamed completely, for I was
still angry with the gusts under the scudding sky. And it had been a
lovely night, too, he added. Not a cloud all night. And a moon! such a
moon! He never remembered a lovelier night. How did he know so much
about the night? Why, he was a night watchman. In the General Omnibus
Company. Had been for years. When then did he sleep? Oh, he would soon
be in bed, but he liked a walk in the morning. Especially such a
morning as this. In two hours' time he'd be fast asleep. Oh no, he
didn't mind being on duty at night, and then, being in the General, he
could have rides for nothing, and only the other day he'd been to
Bushy Park to see the fallen trees. My, what a grand sight! He'd never
seen so many fine trees on their sides. Wonderful it was.

Didn't Chiswick look gr