He finished his coffee, lit a fresh cigarette, and strolled off to the little library where I usually work.  I stepped out upon the verandah and looked down on the harbour at my feet, where already the vessels were hanging out their lamps in the twilight.  I had looked down thus, and at this hour, a thousand times; and always the scene had something new to reveal to me, and much more to withhold—­small subtleties such as a man finds in his wife, however ordinary she may appear to other people.  And here, in the next room, was a man who, in half-a-dozen hours, felt able to describe Troy, to deck her out, at least, in language that should captivate a million or so of breakfasting Britons.

“My country,” said I, “if you have given up, in these six hours, a tithe of your heart to this man—­if, in fact, his screed be not arrant bosh—­then will I hie me to London for good and all, and write political leaders all the days of my life.”

In an hour’s time the Journalist came sauntering out to me, and announced that his letter was written.

“Have you sealed it up?”

“Well, no.  I thought you might give me an additional hint or two; and maybe I might look it over again and add a few lines before turning in.”

“Do you mind my seeing it?”

“Not the least in the world, if you care to.  I didn’t think, though, that it could possibly interest you, who know already every mortal thing that is to be known about the place.”

“You’re mistaken.  I may know all about this place when I die, but not before.  Let’s hear what you have to say.”

We went indoors, and he read it over to me.

It was a surprisingly brilliant piece of description; and accurate, too.  He had not called it “a little fishing-town,” for instance, as so many visitors have done in my hearing, though hardly a fishing-boat puts out from the harbour.  The guide-books call it a fishing-town, but the Journalist was not misled, though he had gone to them for a number of facts.  I corrected a date and then sat silent.  It amazed me that a man who could see so much, should fail to perceive that what he had seen was of no account in comparison with what he had not:  or that, if he did indeed perceive this, he could write such stuff with such gusto.  “To be capable of so much and content with so little,” I thought; and then broke off to wonder if, after all, he were not right.  To-morrow he would be on his way, crowding his mind with quick and brilliant impressions, hurrying, living, telling his fellows a thousand useful and pleasant things, while I pored about to discover one or two for them.

“I thought,” said the Journalist, swinging his gold pencil-case between finger and thumb, “you might furnish me with just a hint or so, to give the thing a local colour.  Some little characteristic of the natives, for instance.  I noticed, this afternoon, when I was most sea-sick, that your fellow took off his hat and pulled something out of the lining.  I was too ill to see what it was; but he dropped it overboard the next minute and muttered something.”