'Will you kindly help a little?' she asked after a moment's waiting,
in which any chivalrous gentleman, she thought, should have flung
himself into the breach.
'I?' he asked vaguely. 'How do you mean? What shall I do?'
She longed to say, 'Wake up, and perhaps an idea will come to you';
but she did say, with some spirit, 'Almost anything, thank you.
Drive the dog away, and help some of the smallest children across the
street, please. You can have these two' (indicating the twins
smilingly), 'or the other ninety-eight--whichever you like.'
He obeyed orders, though not in a very alert fashion, but showed a
sense of humour in choosing the ninety-eight rather than the two, and
Mary left him on the corner with a pleasant word of thanks and a
cheery remark.
The next morning he appeared at the garden gate, and asked if he
might come in and sit a while. He was made welcome; but it was a
busy morning, and he was so silent a visitor that everybody forgot
his existence.
He made a curious impression, which can hardly be described, save
that any student of human nature would say at once, 'He is out of
relation with the world.' He had something of the expression one
sees in a recluse or a hermit. If you have ever wandered up a
mountain side, you may have come suddenly upon a hut, a rude bed
within it, and in the door a man reading, or smoking, or gazing into
vacancy.
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