On another day perhaps you might have chanced
to knock at his door when some serious complication
had vexed him--a day when the cogs and pulleys
upon which he had depended for certain demonstration
had become so tangled up in his busy brain that
he had thoughts for nothing else. Then, had he
pushed pack his green door to receive you, his greeting
might have been as cordial and his welcome as
hearty, but before long you would have found his
eyes gazing into vacancy, or he would have stopped
half-way in an answer to your question, his thoughts
far away. Had you loved him you would then have
closed the green door behind you and left him alone.
Had you remained you would, perhaps, have seen him
spring from his seat and pick up from his work-bench
some unfinished fragment. This he would have
plunged into the smouldering embers of his forge and,
entirely forgetful of your presence, would have seized
the handle of the bellows, his eyes intent on the
blaze, his lips muttering broken sentences. At these
moments, as he would peer into the curling smoke,
one thin hand upraised, the long calico gown wrinkling
about his spare body, the paper cap on his head,
he would have looked like some alchemist of old, or
weird necromancer weaving a mystic spell. Sometimes,
as you watched his face, with the glow of the
coals lighting up his earnest eyes, there would have
flashed across his troubled features, as heat lightning
illumines a cloud, some sudden brightness from within
followed by a quick smile of triumph. The rebellious