To any one ten feet away, all this sounded like the humming of a chant by one who unconsciously sang below the breath as he worked. But to Baillie, who lay within a foot or two of the boy's head, the words were perfectly audible, and presently, without moving, and in a low murmuring voice, he said: "I understand, Sam. I knew you were here. I heard you singing outside, many days ago." Then the wounded man pretended to have difficulty in adjusting his blankets, and Sam rose and bent over the cot to help him. While doing so, he said: "Mis' Agatha, she done brung me to New York, an' sent me heah to fin' yo'. How's you a-gittin'? Tell me, so's I kin report, an' tell me every day." Baillie replied briefly that his wound was healing and his strength coming back, to which Sam answered: "Don't you go fer to tell de doctah too much 'bout dat. Jes' keep as sick as you kin, while you'se a-gittin' well. I'll tell you why another time. Git 'quainted wid Sam more an' more ebery day, Mas' Baillie, so's we kin talk 'thout 'rousin' 'spicion." In aid of this, Sam took pains, as the days went on, to establish relations with all the other patients who were well enough to talk, and as his inconsequent humour seemed to amuse them, the doctors made no objection to his loquaciousness. It was one of the articles in Sam's philosophical creed that "yo' cawn't have too many frien's, 'case yo' cawn't never know when you may need 'em." Accordingly, he cultivated acquaintance with everybody, high and low, about the place, including the peculiarly surly man who brought the coal and the kindling-wood for the establishment. That personage was a white man of melancholy temper and extraordinary taciturnity. He went in and out of the place, wearing a long overcoat that had probably seen better days, but so long ago as to have forgotten all about them. The only other article of his clothing that was visible was a slouch hat, the brim of which had completely lost courage and could no longer pretend to stand out from the head that wore it, but hung down like a limp lambrequin over the man's eyes. The man himself seemed in an equally discouraged condition. He shambled rather than walked, and never answered a question or responded to a salutation, except in Sam's case. To him, when the two were alone, the man would sometimes speak a few words. Sam was daily and hourly studying everybody and everything about him, with a view to possibilities. Nobody was too insignificant and nothing too trivial for him to note and consider and remember. "Yo' cawn't never know," he philosophised, "what rock will come handiest when yo' wants to frow it at a squirrel."