four-score years and ten; and, withal, a sense of loneliness
that appealed to my sympathy. Slightly stooped, and with his
hands clasped behind him, he walked back and forth with slow and
measured tread, that day when first we met. I can hardly say what
particular motive impelled me to pause in my walk and engage him
in conversation. He seemed pleased when I complimented him on the
attractiveness of his bungalow, and on the well-tended vines and
flowers clustering in profusion over its windows, roof and wide
piazza.

I soon discovered that my new acquaintance was no ordinary
person, but one profound and learned to a remarkable degree; a
man who, in the later years of his long life, had dug deeply into
books and become strong in the power of meditative silence.

I encouraged him to talk, and soon gathered that he had resided
only six or seven years in Southern California, but had passed
the dozen years prior in one of the middle Eastern states. Before
that he had been a fisherman off the coast of Norway, in the
region of the Lofoden Islands, from whence he had made trips
still farther north to Spitzbergen and even to Franz Josef Land.

When I started to take my leave, he seemed reluctant to have me
go, and asked me to come again. Although at the time I thought
nothing of it, I remember now that he made a peculiar remark as I
extended my hand in leave-taking. "You will come again?" he
asked. "Yes, you will come again some day. I am sure you will;
and I shall show you my library and tell you many things of
which you have never dreamed, things so wonderful that it may be
you will not believe me."