observer, said about his hands, as a child of eight. They were the same
hands thirty years after. To me, elderly observer of human things, they
seemed, as he moved them so gracefully--the only touch of physical grace
about him--to confer an air of pathos on the ungainly man, to serve as an
index to a soul which otherwise could not be divined.

From this lean length of body rose a long stringy neck carrying a small
head surmounted by closely cropped carotty thatch. His skin was drawn tight
over the framework of his face, as though his Maker had been forced to
observe the strictest economy in material. His complexion was brick red
over a myriad freckles. His features preserved the irregular ugliness of
the child I half remembered, but it was redeemed by light blue candid eyes
set in a tight net of humorous lines, and by a large, mobile mouth, which,
though it could shut grimly on occasions, yet, when relaxed in a smile,
disarmed you by its ear-to-ear kindliness, and fascinated you by the
disclosure of two rows of white teeth perfectly set in the healthy pink
streaks of gum. He had the air of a man physically fit, inured to hardship;
the air, too, in spite of his gentleness, of a man accustomed to command.
In the country house at which we met it had not occurred to me to speculate
on his social standing, as human frailty determined that one should do in
the case of so many splendid and gallant officers of the New Army. His
manners were marked by shy simplicity and quiet reserve. It was a shock to
preconceived ideas to find him bred in a circus, even in so magnificent a
circus as the Cirque Rocambeau, and brought up by a clown, even by such a
superior clown as Ben Flint,

"And my old friend?" I asked. For I had lost knowledge of Ben practically
from the time I ended my happy vagabondage. _Maxima mea culpa_.

"He died when I was about sixteen," replied Colonel Lackaday, "and his wife