I had few or no inklings of his life disconnected with the streets and
the book-stalls, chiefly those on Cornhill or in the vicinity. It is
possible I am wrong in inferring that he occupied a room somewhere at
the South End or in South Boston, and lived entirely alone, heating his
coffee and boiling his egg over an alcohol lamp. I got from him one or
two fortuitous hints of quaint housekeeping. Every winter, it appeared,
some relative, far or near, sent him a large batch of mince pies, twenty
or thirty at least. He once spoke to me of having laid in his winter
pie, just as another might speak of laying in his winter coal. The
only fireside companion Tom Folio ever alluded to in my presence was
a Maltese cat, whose poor health seriously disturbed him from time to
time. I suspected those mince pies. The cat, I recollect, was named Miss
Mowcher.

If he had any immediate family ties beyond this I was unaware of
them, and not curious to be enlightened on the subject. He was more
picturesque solitary. I preferred him to remain so. Other figures
introduced into the background of the canvas would have spoiled the
artistic effect.

Tom Folio was a cheerful, lonely man--a recluse even when he allowed
himself to be jostled and hurried along on the turbulent stream of
humanity sweeping in opposite directions through Washington Street and
its busy estuaries. He was in the crowd, but not of it. I had so little
real knowledge of him that I was obliged to imagine his more intimate
environments. However wide of the mark my conjectures may have fallen,
they were as satisfying to me as facts would have been. His secluded
room I could picture to myself with a sense of certainty--the couch (a
sofa by day), the cupboard, the writing-table with its student lamp, the