I, myself, remember him very well, and can see him now flinging his thin, black, and--as it seemed to me then--gigantic figure up Orange Street, his coat flapping behind him, his enormous boots flapping in front of him, and his huge hands flapping on each side of him like a huge gesticulating crow.
He had, the Polchester people who liked him said, "a rich voice." The others who did not like him called him "an affected ass." He ran up and down the scale like this: ______________________________________________________________ Mrs.
______________________________________________________________ dear ______________________________________________________________ My ______________________________________________________________ Cole.
______________________________________________________________ and his blue cheeks looked colder than any iceberg.

But then I must confess that I am prejudiced.

I did not like him; no children did.
The Cole children hated him.

Jeremy because he had damp hands, Helen because he never looked at her, Mary because he once said to her, "Little girls must play as well as work, you know." He always talked down to us as though we were beings of another and inferior planet.

He called it, "Getting on with the little ones." No, he was not popular with us.
He stood on this particular and dramatic occasion in front of the group in the doorway and stared--as well he might.