“You are wet,” said the old man, laying his hand on my shoulder, feeling me over carefully; “come nearer the stove.”

The child brought a chair.  As I dropped into it I caught his eye fixed upon me intently.

“What are you?” he said abruptly, noting my glance,—­“a peddler.”  He said this standing over me,—­his arms akimbo, his bare feet spread apart.

“No, a painter,” I answered smiling; my trap had evidently misled him.

He mused a little, rubbing his beard with his thumb and forefinger; then, making a mental inventory of my exterior, beginning with my slouch hat and taking in each article down to my tramping shoes, he said slowly,—­

“And poor?”

“Yes, we all are.”  And I laughed; his manner made me a little uncomfortable.

My reply, however, seemed to reassure him.  His features relaxed and a more kindly expression overspread his countenance.

“And now, what are you?” I asked, offering him a cigarette as I spoke.

“Me?  Nothing,” he replied curtly, refusing it with a wave of his hand.  “Only Brockway,—­just Brockway,—­that’s all,—­just Brockway.”  He kept repeating this in an abstracted way, as if the remark was addressed to himself, the words dying in his throat.

Then he moved to the door, took down an oilskin from a peg, and saying that he would get the boat ready, went out into the night, shutting the door behind him, his bare feet flapping like wet fish as he walked.

I was not sorry I was going away so soon.  The man and the place seemed uncanny.

I roused myself and crossed the room, attracted by the contents of a cupboard filled with cheap pottery and some bits of fine old English lustre.  Then I examined the furniture of the curious interior,—­the high-backed chairs, mahogany table,—­one leg replaced with pine,—­the hair sofa and tall clock in the corner by the door.  They were all old and once costly, and all of a pattern of by-gone days.  Everything was scrupulously clean, even to the strip of unbleached muslin hung at the small windows.

The door blew in with a whirl of wind, and Brockway entered shaking the wet from his sou’wester.

“You must wait,” he said.  “Dan the brakeman has taken my boat to the Railroad Dock.  He will return in an hour.  If you are hungry, you can sup with us.  Emily, set a place for the painter.”

His manner was more frank.  He seemed less uncanny too.  Perhaps he had been in some special ill humor when I entered.  Perhaps, too, he had been suspicious of me; I had not thought of that before.

The child spread the cloth and busied herself with the dishes and plates.  She was about twelve years old, slightly built and neatly dressed.  Her eyes were singularly large and expressive.  The light brown hair about her shoulders held a tinge of gold when the lamplight shone upon it.