Thus musing, he chanced to look up, and was aware of a man coming slowly along the road; very slowly, with a singular gait, half limp, half lurch. He was dressed like a day laborer, and carried a dinner pail; a pickaxe was slung over his shoulder. It was the gait that caught Pippin's eye; he stopped building air-castles, and looked narrowly at the advancing figure. The man shambled slowly along, and paused near the gate of the white house. Drawing out a clay pipe, he proceeded to light it; a clumsy business he made of it, fumbling long for his matches, then making several vain attempts to strike a light, his eyes meantime roaming over house and grounds with sharp, searching glances. Pippin, always so ready to help, might easily have given him a light--but a moment before Pippin had extinguished his own pipe with a swift, silent motion. He sat perfectly still under his tree, not to be distinguished from it in the dusk, under the drooping branches, his eyes riveted to the slouching figure. So absorbed was he that he saw nothing of the quiet approach of another figure, until it stood close beside the first; a lighter, slimmer figure, that of a young man. Pippin could see no more till the newcomer, turning his profile to the rising moon, displayed a crooked nose. If the two exchanged words, it was in a whisper so low that Pippin could not catch it. The younger man also pulled out a pipe, and seemed to ask for a light; there was more fumbling and scratching, then the elder nodded slightly and went limping and lurching along the road. Why did the younger man linger? Why did he, too, slip under a drooping tree--not fifty feet away from Pippin's own, I declare--and stand there, silent and hidden as Pippin himself? Why, Pippin, a man may have feelings, even if his nose is crooked. If a pretty girl comes out to sit on her steps and look at the rising moon and think sweet, girl-moonlight thoughts, why--be reasonable, Pippin! Why should not Nosey Bashford like to watch her as well as you? Nosey's nose is shockingly crooked, and his eyes are crooked, too, little and red and too near together; he is crooked inside and out, but he has his feelings, and it is well for you, Pippin, seeing that you are entirely unarmed, whereas Nosey is never without a sandbag or a brass knuckle or some such pretty trifle, that he does not know of your being only fifty feet away from him. "That's right!" said Pippin, sitting on his bed, as above mentioned, whistling on his file; "that may be all so, and likely 'tis: but that don't explain Dod happenin' along just that minute, nor yet them two with their heads together. Dod has aged some--well, he would! Must be sixty year old, or nigh it--but he don't look no handsomer nor no--well, say piouser--than he did. What I say is, I believe them two has a game on. I hate to keep the Old Man waitin', but I rather guess I'll have to hang round here a spell, and see what they're up to. What say?"