"I'm walking your way, Mr.Fisbee," remarked the journalist, hooking his arm into the old man's.

"Suppose we leave our friends here and go home ?" Mr.Fisbee was the one inhabitant of the town who had an unknown past; no one knew more about him than that he had been connected with a university somewhere, and had travelled in unheard-of countries before he came to Plattville.

A glamour of romance was thrown about him by the gossips, to whom he ever proved a fund of delightful speculation.

There was a dark, portentous secret in his life, it was agreed; an opinion not too well confirmed by the old man's appearance.

His fine eyes had a pathetic habit of wandering to the horizon in a questioning fashion that had a queer sort of hopelessness in it, as if his quest were one for the Holy Grail, perhaps; and his expression was mild, vague, and sad.