The voice proceeded from a pinched-up old fellow with a colorless face, straggling white beard, and sharp eyes. He wore a flat-topped slouch hat resting on his ears, and a red silk handkerchief tied in a sporting knot around his neck. His teeth were missing, the lips puckered up like the mouth of a sponge-bag. In his hand he carried a cane with a round ivory handle. This served as a prop to his mouth, the puckered lips fumbling about the knob. He was shadowed by an old woman wearing a shiny brown silk, that glistened like a wet waterproof, black mitts, poke-bonnet, flat lace collar, and a long gold watch chain. I had noticed them at supper. She was cutting up his food. "Kinder ca'm, ain't it?" he exclaimed again, looking my way. "Fust real nat'ral vittles I've eat fur a year. Spect it's ther sea air. This water's brackish, ain't it?" I confirmed his diagnosis of the saline qualities of the Chesapeake, and asked if he had been an invalid. "Waal, I should say so! Bin livin' on hospital mush fur nigh on ter a year; but, by gum! ter-night I jist said ter Mommie: 'Mommie, shuv them soft-shells this way. Ain't seen none sence I kep' tavern.'" Mommie nodded her head in confirmation, but with an air of "if you're dead in the morning, don't blame me." "What's been the trouble?" I inquired, drawing up a camp stool. "Waal, I dunno rightly. Got my stummic out o' gear, throat kinder weak, and what with the seventies"---- "Seventies?" I asked. "Yes; had 'em four year. I'm seventy-five nex' buthday. But come ter sum it all up, what's ther matter with me is I ain't never had no sleep. Let me sit on t'other side. One ear's stopped workin' this ten year." He moved across and pulled an old cloak around him. "Been long without sleep?" I asked sympathetically. "'Bout sixty year--mebbe sixty-five." I looked at him inquiringly, fearing to break the thread if I jarred too heavily. "Yes, spect it must be more. Well, you keep tally. Five year bootblack and porter in a tavern in Dover, 'leven year tendin' bar down in Wilmington, fourteen year bootcherin', nineteen year an' six months keepin' a roadhouse ten miles from Philadelphy fur ther hucksters comin' to market--quit las' summer. How much yer got?" I nodded, assenting to his estimate of sixty-five years of service, if he had started when fifteen. He ruminated for a time, caressing the ivory ball of his cane with his uncertain mouth. I jogged him again. "Boots and tending bar I should think would be wakeful, but I didn't suppose butchering and keeping hotel necessitated late hours."