"I must apologize for not having called before," said Marcus. "I--" "Not a word, sir," interrupted the old gentleman. "It is I who must apologize for the rudeness of nodding and beckoning to a perfect stranger. But the fact was, I could not regard you as a stranger. Seeing you at your window, smoking and reading, day after day, while I was smoking and musing at mine, I gradually came to sympathize with you, and to wish that the distance across the lots was short enough to allow us to converse. I thought, perhaps, that on some subjects we might interest each other. Now, be good enough to fill that pipe and smoke it, while I tell you in few words who I am." He pointed to a meerschaum, carved into the semblance of a Dutchman's head, which looked not unlike his own. It was fitted to a long Turkish stem, and hung against the wall by a silver chain, within reach of his hand. Five other pipes of quaint design hung near it. Marcus protested against smoking in an invalid's presence; but the old gentleman insisted upon it, and playfully but firmly threatened to smoke the pipe himself if his guest did not. So Marcus filled the large bowl from a paper of old, mild tobacco, which hung in a pouch near it, and drew a few gentle whiffs, intending to let the pipe go out. But the old gentleman watched him. "'Twon't do," said he. "That old pipe of mine is not used to neglect. As a particular favor, now, I beg that you'll smoke, and puff out clouds, as I have often seen you do across the way." Marcus protested again, but the old gentleman stubbornly maintained his point; and it was not till the pungent smoke began to curl upward, that he proceeded with his personal disclosure. "Have you ever heard my name before, Mr. Wilkeson?" said he. Marcus bowed, and said that he had not had that pleasure. "Of course not," returned the old gentleman, not displeased with the answer. "I have taken infinite pains to keep out of public life since I retired from business, twenty-five years ago. Even before that time, I was known only to a very few persons as a silent partner in the large iron-importing house of Sniggs, Buffet & Co. I had no relations, and few friends, in the common acceptance of that much-abused word. My only happiness was in my wife--that is her picture hanging over the mantelpiece--and this house, which my father built, and which, according to a tradition in our family, is on or near the spot where my great-great-grandfather, the fourth Myndert Van Quintem, perished by the hands of the Indians." "Then," interrupted Marcus, "you belong to an old Dutch family?"