I speak of that item of serving pie with a knife, not by way of poking fun at anybody; but here was a man five years away from his inland hills, for a whole year owner of an eating-place in a good-sized seaport city, and had not yet noticed that some people ate pie without a knife. By it I fancied I could gauge the man's social inheritance. And there were other customs of the place in keeping with the pie and knife. I used to speculate on what primitive sort of an upbringing he had that he was so slow to adopt the most ordinary civilized customs. Drislane seemed to be at home in the place. So was I for that matter; by which I mean I felt safe enough. Several times before this, in my inquisitive ramblings about the port, I had looked in there. So far as that goes, there are not many places where they bother a man who doesn't bother them, always excepting, of course, that he doesn't get drunk and disorderly, and isn't naturally foolish. While I was studying the place and the people, Drislane ordered supper. I paid no attention to him until he joggled my elbow. "What do you think of her?" he asked. "Which one?" I asked, and looked about me afresh to note what worshipful creature it was I had missed. "You didn't notice," he said, plainly put out with me, "the girl who is waiting on us?" I had noticed her; but when she reappeared with the first part of our order, I noticed anew. A tall, full-bosomed girl she was, and as she walked across the floor toward us, a load of table things in each hand, she swayed from her hips like a young tree in the wind. The physical force and poise of the girl was the notable thing about her. She carried her armfuls of dishes and food as if they were handfuls of marshmallows. She must have spent years working like a man in the fields to have developed such physical power. As to her face--it was innocent as a child's. He introduced me when she had set down her dishes. "Miss Rose"---- I didn't get her surname, and it doesn't matter. "Rose's uncle owns this place," he added. "Poor girl!" I thought. She met his enchanted gaze with a slow, red-lipped smile. To me she gave an embarrassed, half-sidewise glance. Strange men as yet were evidently disturbing items in her life. He watched her when she left us, until she had passed through the kitchen-door and beyond sight. "I'm going to marry and settle down," he said. "This young lady?" "If she'll have me. I haven't asked her yet." He was fiddling with his bread and butter. Suddenly he burst out with: "If you knew how lonesome I used to get, and the things I was tempted to do to forget it!" "A man doesn't need, son, to be entirely exiled from his family to believe that; but when you're married will you go to sea just the same?" I asked. He did not answer.