To the conventional mind of the vicar this was a very unconventional greeting on the part of one he had not seen before; and he took the proffered hand with an air of reserve. “Allow me to congratulate you on your discourse,” said the stranger in an idiom which struck the vicar as rather unusual. “It was first-rate. And I’m a judge. I think I am anyway.” The man in the white hat spoke in such a cool, simple, forthcoming manner, that the vicar was nonplussed. And yet there was such a charm about him that even a spirit in pontificalibus could hardly resent it. “Ah, I see,” said the stranger, noting the vicar’s stiffening of attitude with an amused eye, “you are waiting for an introduction. Well, I’m a neighbor, the new tenant of Longwood.” “Oh, really,” said the vicar. The air of constraint lightened a little, but it was too heavy to vanish at once. “I am glad to meet you.” “Let me give you a card.” The new neighbor suddenly dived into a hidden recess of a light gray frock coat, and whipped out a small case. Mr. Perry-Hennington with a leisureliness half reluctant, and in almost comic contrast to the stranger’s freedom of gesture, accepted the card, disentangled his eyeglasses from his pectoral cross, and read it carefully. It bore the inscription: Mr. Gazelee Payne Murdwell, 94 Fifth Avenue, New York. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Murdwell,” said the vicar, with a note of reassurance coming into his tone. “Allow me to welcome you among us.” The voice, in its grave sonority, rose almost to a point. It didn’t quite achieve it, but the fact that the man was an American and also the new tenant of Longwood accounted for much. For the vicar was already quite sure that he didn’t belong to the island. The native article could not have had that particular manner, nor could it have dressed in that particular way, nor could it have shown that extraordinary, half quizzical self-security. A new man from the city might have achieved the white hat (with modifications), the gray frock coat, the white waistcoat, the white spats, the wonderful checked cravat, but he could not have delivered a frontal attack on an obviously reverend and honorable gentleman, for long generations indigenous to the soil of the county, on the threshold of his own parish church.