Harding was a man getting toward middle life, strongly built, but not tall, with a grave, handsome face and speech studiously reserved and cold. He seemed to fear lest he might be thought educated, and, as if to disarm such a suspicion, his few words were apt to be abrupt and homely. When he first came to the Flat he had two leathern trunks, and these in due time were bestowed in the tent on the knoll. One Sunday Harding opened them. The first contained some respectable garments, such as might belong to the ordinary wardrobe of a gentleman. There were white shirts among the rest, and some pairs of kid gloves. Of all these articles Harding made a pile in the rear of his tent and then deliberately set them on fire. "I couldn't afford it before," he muttered. "They might have bought a meal or two if need were; but now----" To be rich enough to gratify a caprice was clearly very agreeable to the man; for presently he brought out a number of books--old favorites obviously--and treated them in the same incendiary manner. The Shakespeare and the Milton, the Macaulay and the Buckle spluttered and crackled reproachfully in the flames; yet their destroyer never winced, but added to the holocaust heaps of letters, and at last two or three miniatures saved for the fire as a final tid-bit, and gazed with grim joy as the whole crumbled in the end to powdery ashes. Chester Harding reserved nothing but one little volume, bound in velvet with gilt clasps, and one faded old daguerreotype, which he replaced in his trunk side by side, and then covered quickly so that they should be out of sight. It seemed to be his wish to hide and to forget every trace of his past life.