"Well," said Marcus Wilkeson, "though I have given up making calls as a business, I shall certainly take the New-Year's privilege of dropping in on the venerable unknown over the way."
"Two things are plain," said Fayette Overtop. "One is, that the pale, rascally looking young man is the old man's son. Now, I don't suppose either of you will dispute that?" (Overtop paused a moment to receive and dispose of objections, but none were made.) "The other is, that the old fellow is immensely rich--worth a million or two, maybe. Perhaps you would like to argue that point." Overtop smiled, as if nothing would give him greater pleasure than to annihilate a few dozen opinions to the contrary.
"To save argument, as usual, we admit everything," responded Wilkeson. "But, pray condescend to tell us how you know this fine old boy to be superlatively rich."
Overtop smiled upon his ignorant friends, and answered:
"Because he wears a white cravat. The man isn't a clergyman, is he? Do clergymen smoke pipes? He isn't a Quaker, is he? Do Quakers, or those of them who indulge in white cravats, wear their coat collars turned down? Consult your own experience, now, and tell me whether you ever saw anybody but a very rich man (with the exceptions already stated) wearing a white cravat. I leave it to your candor."
Wilkeson and Maltboy nodded their heads, as if stricken dumb with conviction.
Overtop, gratified with this ready acquiescence, modestly went on to say that he would not undertake to explain the phenomenon; that task he left to some more philosophical mind. He contented himself with making a humble record of facts.
"And now that each of you have made a discovery in the row of houses, let me try my luck." Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale, intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away at something held in a vise before him? Now he stops to examine a paper--a plan, probably--which he holds in his hand. Now he wipes the perspiration from his forehead. Can't you see him?"
"Distinctly," was the joint reply.
"What do you suppose he is doing?" asked Overtop.
"No idea," said Wilkeson. "Perhaps mending a teakettle."
"Or repairing an umbrella," suggested Maltboy.
Overtop smiled, and said:
"A person with the slightest powers of observation, would see that that man has genius in his face; that his thin arm is not used to hard mechanical labor; that his brain is so heated with great ideas, that he tries to cool it by opening the window. The tinkering of an umbrella or teakettle would not make a man sweat in midwinter. You won't deny the force of that suggestion."
As he spoke, a young girl advanced from the back part of the room, and stood by the pale workman's side. She wore a bonnet, and a shawl tightly wrapped around her. Though the features of her face could not be distinguished in the distance, it was not hard to detect a pleasant expression in her eyes, a smile on her lips, and a high color on her cheeks, as if she had just come in from the street. She held up a little basket for the workman's inspection.
He paused in his labor, took the girl's head between his hands, and kissed her fondly on the brow. Then he opened the little basket, and drew from it a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese, which he began eating hurriedly. He also seemed, by signs, to press the girl to eat; but she shook her head, smiled more than before, and looked up affectionately into his face. Having bolted a few mouthfuls, the workman placed the remains of the repast on the bench or table before him, kissed the young girl, and resumed his work. She watched every motion of his hand with eager eyes. Once she moved as if to close the window, but he shook his head, and again wiped the sweat from his brow.
He had consulted the paper, and attacked his task with fresh energy for the third or fourth time, when his eyes happened to rest upon the window full of scrutinizing faces. His lips moved in some sudden exclamation, and then he shut the window with vehemence, and drew the curtain which obscured the lower half of it.
"Not a very kind reception of your theory, so far," said Marcus.
"Prejudice--nothing more," said Overtop. "When they see that we have no wish to pry into their private affairs, but are animated with a neighborly regard for them, they will not repel our advances. It isn't human nature."
CHAPTER IV.
QIGG.
During the following two weeks, up to New Year's day, the three friends made little progress in their observations. The tall girl in the immense skirts appeared rarely to reward Matthew Maltboy's ardent gaze, and even then seemed to look down at the dingy snow beneath, or the clouds overhead, or to something or somebody across the way, but never to the fluttering Maltboy.
Nothing more was seen of the pale and grayhaired workman; for he kept the lower curtain of his window jealously drawn. But at night his shadow, strongly projected on the curtain, was in incessant motion; and far into the morning hours a gigantic head and arms shifted and blended upon it in grotesque forms. At the other window of the workman's apartment the young girl often sat, book in hand, and moved her lips as if she were reading aloud. Her eyes were never seen to wander to the outer world with those longings for freedom and fresh air which are natural to the youthful heart, but were always fixed upon the book, or upon some object within the room. She was entirely unconscious of the distant and imperfect scrutiny to which her form and movements were subjected by Marcus Wilkeson, who had begun to take a strange interest in her, and in the shadow on the curtain, since the healthy and amiable old gentleman directly opposite had ceased to smoke his pipe and indulge in his tranquil meditation daily.
Twice only had he shown himself, and then, after a grave bow to Marcus Wilkeson, who returned it with more than the usual inclination of head, the old gentleman had taken a few whiffs at his pipe, looked out of the window with a troubled air, and vanished from the sight of his sympathizing observer, as if the quiet old sitting place had lost its charm for him. The young man--the disturbing element of the old gentleman's life, as Marcus Wilkeson regarded him--was not again seen in the room where he had made his first appearance, but was discovered, several days after that event, sitting at a table near a window in the second story, and writing industriously. His labors were evidently not disagreeable; for, after an hour's engagement with his pen, he would sit back in his chair, laugh, take a long drink from a black bottle which stood at his elbow, and light a fresh cigar. Whatever his occupation, he was completely absorbed in it, and did not notice the pair of keen eyes peering at him from behind