In addition to agents and owners, there came also road builders, well diggers, interior decorators, landscape gardeners, general contractors, an architect or so, agents for nurseries, tree-mending experts, professional foresters, persons desiring to be superintendent of our country place, persons wishful of taking care of our livestock for us--a whole shoal of them. It booted us nothing to explain that we had not yet bought a place; that we had not even looked at a place with the prospect of buying. Almost without exception these callers were willing to sit down with me and use up hours of my time telling me how well qualified they were to deliver the goods as soon as I had bought land, or even before I had bought it. From the ruck of them as they came avalanching down upon us two or three faces and individualities stand out. There was, for example, the chimney expert. That was what he called himself--a chimney expert. His specialty was constructing chimneys that were guaranteed against smoking, and curing chimneys, built by others, which had contracted the vice. The circumstance of our not having any chimneys of any variety at the moment did not halt him when I had stated that fact to him. He had already removed his hat and overcoat and taken a seat in my study, and he continued to remain right there. He seemed comfortable; in fact, I believe he said he was comfortable. From chimneys he branched out into a general conversation with me upon the topics of the day. In my time I have met persons who knew less about a wider range of subjects than he did, but they had superior advantages over him. Some had traveled about over the world, picking up misinformation; some had been educated into a broad and comprehensive ignorance. But here was a self-taught ignoramus--one, you might say, who had made himself what he was. He may have known all about the habits and shortcomings of flues; but, once you let him out of a chimney, he was adrift on an uncharted sea of mispronounced names, misstated facts and faulty dates. We discussed the war--or, rather, he erroneously discussed it. We discussed politics and first one thing and then another, until finally the talk worked its way round to literature; and then it was he told me I was one of his favorite authors. “Well,” I said to myself, at that, “this person may be shy in some of his departments, but he's all right in others.” And then, aloud, I told him that he interested me and asked him to go on.