"Indeed, sir!" said my companion. "And yet it is simply to listen to what you term offensive and vulgar turmoil that I am here. For, sir, yonder clamour, being inarticulate, may speak infinitely to such as hearken understandingly, being one of Nature's awful voices, a very symphony of Life. Heard separately, each sound is an offence, I admit, but blent thus together they become akin to the incessant surge of ocean, the roar of foaming cataracts, the voice of some rushing, mighty wind, and these are the elemental music of God." "Indeed, sir," said I, "sitting here with you sufficiently remote from the crowd's too-familiar contact, I can begin to appreciate the wisdom of your remarks." "Yet you speak a little disdainfully, I think, sir! But what is there more proper to the contemplation of a philosopher than a concourse of human beings? How compelling its interest, how infinite its variety! The good rub shoulders with the evil, the merry with the sad, the murderer with his victim, each formed alike yet each different--" All at once as I listened, my attention was distracted by a face that projected itself suddenly through the canvas of an adjacent tent, an evil, stealthy face with narrowed eyes that watched us furtively a while and was suddenly gone; my companion espied it also, it seemed, for he sighed a little impatiently. "Tush, young sir!" said he. "Will you allow the face of a peeping rogue to alienate your mind from a conversation that promises to become interesting?" "But sir," said I, rising somewhat hurriedly, "this place is suggestively lonely; I think we were wiser to retire--" "Go if you will, young sir," broke in my strange companion a little grimly, "hasten away by all means, but I remain here." "As you will, sir," I answered and sat down again, though careful to keep my eyes in the one direction. "Sir," continued the aged person, "I have seen much of men and cities, I have journeyed in the desolate places of the world, but--" Uttering a warning cry, I sprang to my feet as three men appeared, desperate-seeming fellows who approached us with a very evident intention: but suddenly, as I watched them in sweating panic, I heard a sharp click behind me, and immediately they halted all three, their ferocious looks smitten to surprised dismay--and glancing over my shoulder I beheld the aged person still puffing serenely at his pipe but with his slender right hand grasping a small, silver-mounted pistol levelled at our would-be aggressors across his knee. And there was something very terrible, I thought, in his imperturbable serenity. "Rogues! Rascals!" sighed he. "To rob is sinful, to disturb the excogitations of philosophers is blasphemous. I found it necessary to shoot one of your sort recently--and why not again?" At this the three began to whine while the ancient person hearkened and puffed his pipe, viewing them with eyes of scorn.