It seems, as I supposed, that when Stahlmann was first settled in the Crib, he was greatly pleased with his situation. The weather was mild and beautiful; the fresh air blowing across the water was a grateful change from the close and dusty atmosphere of Chicago. Many of his old friends came out to take a look at his new quarters, and almost surveyed them with envy while listening to an account of his easy, untroubled life. At dusk, after he had lighted his lamp, and it threw out its rays, he would watch to see how suddenly in the distance, as if to keep it company, the great white beacon in the lighthouse would flash out, burning bright and clear. Then along the western shore the city lights, one by one, would kindle up, multiplying into a thousand twinkling stars that threw a halo against the sky. Afterwards the soughing of the waves as they washed up the sides of his abode, fell pleasantly on his ear, and lulled him to sleep with Caspar lying at his feet. But it seemed as if the same day came again and again, for still the waters broke around him, and still night after night the same lights flashed and burned. Then the time appeared to become longer, and he watched more eagerly for the arrival of some visitors, but, if his watching had been in vain, he went wearily to sleep at night with a feeling of disappointment, only to waken and go through the same cheerless routine. Sometimes for a whole week he would not see a single human being nor hear the sound of a human voice, save his own when he spoke to the dog, who seemed by sagacious instinct to sympathize in his master’s lonesome position, and capered about until he would attract his attention, and be rewarded by an approving word and caress upon the head. Visitors had become less and less frequent until the last of September, when they ceased altogether. Stahlmann in trying to explain this to himself correctly concluded that the authorities must have prohibited them, as he had heard some time previously they entertained such an intention, although he had been reluctant to believe it, and still vainly hoped that it might not be true. But time only confirmed the suspicion which he had been so unwilling to accept, and although within two miles of a crowded city, he found himself completely isolated, cut off, as it were, from the human race.