! I confess that my first
impulse, and a strong one, was to kick him for the good of the human
race. No man has a right to be like that.

And then, quite suddenly, I had a great revulsion of feeling. What was I
that I should judge without knowledge? Perhaps, after all, here was one
bearing treasure. So I said:

"You are the man I have been expecting."

He did not reply, only flashed his eyes up at me, wherein fear deepened.

"I have been saving up a coat for you," I said, "and a pair of shoes.
They are not much worn," I said, "but a little too small for me. I think
they will fit you."

He looked at me again, not sharply, but with a sort of weak cunning. So
far he had not said a word.

"I think our supper is nearly ready," I said: "let us go in."

"No, mister," he mumbled, "a bite out here--no, mister"--and then, as
though the sound of his own voice inspired him, he grew declamatory.

"I'm a respectable man, mister, plumber by trade, but----"

"But," I interrupted, "you can't get any work, you're cold and you
haven't had anything to eat for two days, so you are walking out here in
the country where we farmers have no plumbing to do. At home you have a
starving wife and three small children----"

"Six, mister----"

"Well, six--And now we will go in to supper."

I led him into the entry way and poured for him a big basin of hot
water. As I stepped out again with a comb he was slinking toward the
doorway.

"Here," I said, "is a comb; we are having supper now in a few minutes."

I wish I could picture Harriet's face when I brought him into her
immaculate kitchen. But I gave her a look, one of the commanding sort
that I can put on in times of great emergency, and she silently laid
another place at the table.

When I came to look at our Ruin by the full lamplight I was surprised to
see what a change a little warm water and a comb had wrought in him. He
came to the table uncertain, blinking, apologetic. His forehead, I saw,
was really impressive--high, narrow and thin-skinned. His face gave one
somehow the impression of a carving once full of significant lines, now
blurred and worn as though Time, having first marked it with the lines
of character, had grown discouraged and brushed the hand of
forgetfulness over her work. He had peculiar thin, silky hair of no
particular colour, with a certain almost childish pathetic waviness
around the ears and at the back of the neck. Something, after all, about
the man ar