“Who is he?” I asked.

“Charlie Potter,” said the builder.

“That’s the man!” exclaimed Mr. Main.

“Yes, I reckon Charlie Potter is contented, if anybody be,” said an old fisherman who had hitherto been silent.

Such unanimity of opinion struck me forcibly.  Charlie Potter—­what a humble name; not very remarkable, to say the least.  And to hear him so spoken of in this restless, religious, quibbling community made it all the more interesting.

“So you really think he is contented, do you?” I asked.

“Yes, sir!  Charlie Potter is a contented man,” replied Mr. Main, with convincing emphasis.

“Well,” I returned, “that’s rather interesting.  What sort of a man is he?”

“Oh, he’s just an ordinary man, not much of anybody.  Fishes and builds boats occasionally,” put in the boat-builder.

“Is that all?  Nothing else?”

“He preaches now and then—­not regularly,” said Mr. Main.

A-ha!  I thought.  A religionist!

“A preacher is expected to set a good example,” I said.

“He ain’t a regular preacher,” said Mr. Main, rather quickly.  “He’s just kind of around in religious work.”

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously, not quite catching the import of this “around.”

“Well,” answered the boat builder, “he don’t take any money for what he does.  He ain’t got anything.”

“What does he live on then?” I persisted, still wondering at the significance of “around in religious work.”

“I don’t know.  He used to fish for a living.  Fishes yet once in a while, I believe.”

“He makes models of yachts,” put in one of the bystanders.  “He sold the New Haven Road one for two hundred dollars here not long ago.”

A vision of a happy-go-lucky Jack-of-all-trades arose before me.  A visionary—­a theorist.

“What else?” I asked, hoping to draw them out.  “What makes you all think he is contented?  What does he do that makes him so contented?”

“Well,” said Mr. Main, after a considerable pause and with much of sympathetic emphasis in his voice, “Charlie Potter is just a good man, that’s all.  That’s why he’s contented.  He does as near as he can what he thinks he ought to by other people—­poor people.”

“You won’t find anybody with a kinder heart than Charlie Potter,” put in the boat-builder.  “That’s the trouble with him, really.  He’s too good.  He don’t look after himself right, I say.  A fellow has to look out for himself some in this world.  If he don’t, no one else will.”

“Right you are, Henry,” echoed a truculent sea voice from somewhere.

I was becoming both amused and interested, intensely so.

“If he wasn’t that way, he’d be a darned sight better off than he is,” said a thirty-year-old helper, from a far corner of the room.

“What makes you say that?” I queried.  “Isn’t it better to be kind-hearted and generous than not?”