'Well I do not exactly know. Once I supposed I was Jarvis Waring, but
the wilderness has routed that prejudice. We can be anybody we please;
it is only a question of force or will; and my latest character has
been William Shakespeare. I have been trying to find out whether I
wrote my own plays. Stay to supper and take the other side; it is
long since I have had an argument with flesh and blood. And you are
that,--aren't you?'

But the shape frowned until it seemed all eyebrow. 'Young man,' it
said, 'how came you here? By water?'

'No; by land.'

'Alongshore?'

'No; through the woods.'

'Nobody ever comes through the woods.'

'Agreed; but I am somebody.'

'Do you mean that you have come across from Lake Superior on foot?'

'I landed on the shore of Lake Superior a month or two ago, and struck
inland the same day; where I am now I neither know nor want to know.'

'Very well,' said the shape,--'very well.' But it scowled more gently.
'You have no boat?'