My first vivid impression of his face--I remember it afterward shining with a strange inward illumination--was not favourable.

It was a deep-lined, scarred, worn-looking face, insignificant if not indeed ugly in its features, and yet, even at the first glance, revealing something inexplainable--incalculable-- "Good day, friend," I said heartily.
Without replying to my greeting, he asked: "Is this the road to Kilburn ?"--with a faint flavour of foreignness in his words.
"I think it is," I replied, and I noticed as he lifted his hand to thank me that one finger was missing and that the hand itself was cruelly twisted and scarred.
The stranger instantly set off up the Road without giving me much more attention than he would have given any other signpost.

I stood a moment looking after him--the wings of his overcoat beating about his legs and the small furry ears on his cap wagging gently.
"There," said I aloud, "is a man who is actually going somewhere." So many men in this world are going nowhere in particular that when one comes along--even though he be amusing and insignificant--who is really (and passionately) going somewhere, what a stir he communicates to a dull world! We catch sparks of electricity from the very friction of his passage.
It was so with this odd stranger.

Though at one moment I could not help smiling at him, at the next I was following him.
"It may be," said I to myself, "that this is really the sign man!" I felt like Captain Kidd under full sail to capture a treasure ship; and as I approached I was much agitated as to the best method of grappling and boarding.

I finally decided, being a lover of bold methods, to let go my largest gun first--for moral effect.
"So," said I, as I ran alongside, "you are the man who puts up the signs." He stopped and looked at me.
"What signs ?" "Why the sign 'Rest' along this road." He paused for some seconds with a perplexed expression on his face.
"Then you are not the sign man ?" I said.
"No," he replied, "I ain't any sign man." I was not a little disappointed, but having made my attack, I determined to see if there was any treasure aboard--which, I suppose, should be the procedure of any well-regulated pirate.
"I'm going this way myself," I said, "and if you have no objections--" He stood looking at me curiously, indeed suspiciously, through his round spectacles.
"Have you got the passport ?" he asked finally.
"The passport!" I exclaimed, mystified in my turn.
"Yes," said he, "the passport.