picturesque personage; he looked like a jaded, faded man of business.
But after a little he came into the garden and began to stroll about;
and then his restless, unoccupied carriage, and the vague,
unacquainted manner in which his eyes wandered over the place, seemed
to make it proper that, as an older resident, I should exercise a
certain hospitality. I said something to him, and he came and sat
down beside me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees in his
hands.

"When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?" he inquired.
"That's what I call it--the little breakfast and the big breakfast.
I never thought I should live to see the time when I should care to
eat two breakfasts. But a man's glad to do anything over here."

"For myself," I observed, "I find plenty to do."

He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, deliberate, kind-
looking eye. "You're getting used to the life, are you?"

"I like the life very much," I answered, laughing.

"How long have you tried it?"

"Do you mean in this place?"

"Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty much the same all
over."

"I have been in this house only a fortnight," I said.