There are many conceits by which men may a.s.sert their individuality in dress, even in these days of stereotyped cut. They may adhere by habit or desire to the uniform of their cla.s.s, they may preserve their anonymity even to a cuff-link, yet in some occult way we are apprised of their personal fancy; we see a last-remaining vestige of that high courage that made their ancestors clothe themselves in original and astonishing vestments. And it is this fortuitous difference, this tiny leak, one might say, of their personality, that stamps them finally as belonging to an immense mediocrity. It is this subtle and microscopic change, a sixteenth of an inch in the height of a collar, a line in the pattern of a scarf, a hair's breadth in the disposition of a crease, that the psychologists of the market-place call distinction, and labour industriously to supply.

But the man who now crossed the street and stood before us bore neither in his apparel nor in his lineaments a single detail by which he could be remembered. In everything, from his black medium-toed boots to his Derby hat of untarnished respectability, from his recently-shaven chin to his steady grey-blue eyes, he betrayed not the slightest caprice which would enable an observer to distinguish him from a particular type. It was as though he had been conscious of all this and had even sought to avoid the most trivial peculiarities. In height, in feature, in dress, he was so ordinary that he became extraordinary. His intention to be unnoticed was so obvious that it predicated, in my own mind at least, a character and possibly an occupation out of the common run.

"Can you tell me," he began in a voice that gave no hint of emotion, "can you tell me if this is Van Diemen's Avenue?"

"Yes," we said all together, studying him the while. "Yes, this is Van Diemen's Avenue."

"Thanks," he replied, and withdrew his foot from our bottom step.

It seemed as though he was about to depart and leave us guessing, when he spoke again.

"Perhaps you know the house I want," he said. "Carville's the name. I,"

he added as if in an afterthought, "am Mr. Carville." And he looked at us gravely, apparently unaware of the turmoil of curiosity which he had aroused.

Some one--I think it was Mac--pointed to the next house.

"That's it," we managed to say.

For a moment his eyes rested upon it casually.

"Thanks," he said again, and then, "Much obliged." He stepped back to the sidewalk and walked along to the house. None of us can recall exactly what happened when he approached his door, for we were all looking away across the valley, hastily rearranging our chaotic impressions. It is to be presumed that he knocked and was admitted. When we glanced round a few moments later he was gone.

"Great Scott!" murmured Mac, and looked at us in the growing dusk. Bill rose to get dinner.

Throughout the meal we refrained from any comment. Now that he had materialized, there was no reason, in the nature of things, why we should bother our heads any more about him. In the most natural way he had appeared and innocently demolished the photo-play romances we had constructed about him. It was a warning to us to avoid nonsense, in future, when discussing our neighbours. Miss Fraenkel had fared no better. Evidently he was not "held" for something with which his wife had "got away." We were all ridiculously wrong and ought to be ashamed of ourselves. And so we were; avoiding mention of him, and devoting our attention to the fish, for it was Friday, and we kept it religiously.

But as I drank my coffee and listened to that exquisitely mournful _barcarolle_ from the _Tales of Hoffmann_, the whole episode took on a different aspect. I perceived, as Schopenhauer had perceived a hundred years before me, that our first judgment upon a man or principle is probably the most correct. I saw that I had been carried away by logic and numbers and had discounted my first impression. From the angle at which I now regarded Mr. Carville I could see that, after all, his case presented certain details which we could not as yet account for.

Unfamiliar as I was with the life of the sea, I felt instinctively that men who had their business in great waters would bear upon their persons indications of their calling, some sign which would catch one's imagination and a.s.sist one to visualize their collective existence. But Mr. Carville had nothing. I pa.s.sed in mental review the details of his appearance, his blue serge suit, his dark green tie, his greying moustache, clipped short in a fashion that might be American, English, French or German. His voice had been quiet and deferential, but by no means genteel; nor had it any hint of the roystering joviality of a sailor. More than anything else his gait, in its sedate un.o.btrusiveness, seemed to me utterly at variance with the rolling swagger which we conventionally a.s.sociate with seamen.

Grant, however, I said to myself, that he looks a truth-telling man.

Grant that he is, as his children said, at sea. Surely there is something romantic in this quiet-eyed man being married to such a woman as Mrs. Carville! Surely a man whose children bear names so bright on the rolls of fame must have something in him worthy of admiration! As the _barcarolle_ swelled and died away, I felt this conviction growing within me. I felt certain that so far from demolishing the real mystery, Mr. Carville had only brought it into focus. We had not seen it before.

And it promised to be a mystery on a higher plane than the rather sordid affair we had been postulating.

I decided to sleep on my conclusions, however, before broaching the matter to my friends, and having some work to finish for the morning's mail, I went back to my desk. For three hours or so I worked steadily, page after page slipping to the floor as I finished them. My friends did not disturb me, and when I ascended to the studio for a "crack" before retiring, I found the big room in darkness. So! I mused and descended. A brilliant moon threw a dense black shadow in front of the house. The porch was in gloom, but the street was nearly as bright as day. I stood on the verandah for a few minutes, filling a pipe and looking across at the Metropolitan light where it shone serenely on the horizon. As I struck a match I became aware of a figure moving slowly in front of the Carville house, up and down the gravel walk that ran below their verandah. I threw away my match and stepped down into the moonlight, intending to stroll up and down for a while on the flags of the sidewalk. I often find that if I retire immediately from a burst of writing I am unable to sleep for several hours. The pendulum of the mind should be brought to rest quietly and without shock.

I was not surprised when the figure in the shadow stepped out into the moonlight as I approached. What startled me was the undoubted resemblance to myself in figure and ma.s.s. We were both small men.

Perhaps there was a shade more shoulder-breadth on his side than mine, but there was the same slight droop, the same negligible tendency to stoutness. As I turned the matter over in my mind we came face to face.

"Good evening," we said simultaneously. He waved his pipe, a corn cob, towards the east. "New York!" he remarked, and we stood side by side for a moment in silence. The simple observation seemed to me to imply a susceptibility to the sublimity of the prospect that we had not discovered to any extent among our other neighbours. To them, apparently, New York was no more than London is to Hampstead; they had the suburban sentiment in an acute form. Nevertheless I was somewhat at a loss to continue our conversation. It seemed foolish to neglect such a heaven-directed opportunity to meet this man on his own ground and obtain some light upon his career. How should I begin? Should I say to him, "Look here, it is very nice, no doubt; but we, your neighbours, are simply crazy to know who and what you are?" That might strike him in various ways. He might take offence, and one could not blame him. He might see humour in it, and a proof of the contemptible meanness of human nature. I decided that I lacked courage to blurt out my desire that way. He was so very much like myself that I could not rid myself of the notion that he might prefer a milder way of approach. And as I sorted out my stock of diplomacy he spoke of the matter himself.

"You are a seaman, I understand?" I remarked. He gave me a quick glance.

"I go to sea," he replied, "if that is what you mean. Yes, in the legal phrase of the Board of Trade, I'm a seaman, and my number is _Three nine five, eight nine three_." He laughed shortly and continued to look out towards New York.

"A picturesque life," I hazarded, regretting my total ignorance of it.

Again he looked at me and laughed.

"You think so?" he queried. "You think so?"

"I speak from book knowledge only," I said. "It is usually described in those terms." We began to walk to and fro.

"Well," he admitted unexpectedly, "and so it is. I don't doubt that to anyone just looking at it, you understand, it is as you say, 'picturesque,' But when you have a number like _Three nine five, eight nine three_, you have another view of it."

"You have been for a long voyage?"

"Oh no," he said; "Mediterranean and back, that's all."

I began to realize something of the man from this. I had no knowledge of the sea, but I certainly had a mind trained by years of observation and reflection to deduce certain definite data affecting human nature. And I realized dimly that a man who regarded a run round the Mediterranean and back across the Atlantic as a trivial episode scarcely worthy of mention, might have views on literature and art radically at variance with my own.

"I should have thought," I remarked, "that you would have made your home there rather than here."

"There's some who do," he said. "Lots of the Anchor Line men do. But personally I'd rather be here."

"It is very like England," I agreed, as he broke in.

"Sure," he said. "I was just thinking as I came up the hill. I come from Hertfordshire myself. Very like the Northern Heights."

"We always think," I answered, "that it is like Ess.e.x."

He pondered for a moment, enjoying his pipe.

"Well, it is," he decided. "You mean looking over Staten Island to the sea? Yes, only they're busier here than along Mersea Flats, eh? Oh yes, I used to know that part when I was a boy. There isn't much between Chipping Barnet and Hamford Water that I didn't know in those days."

"You will go back some day?" I said as we turned. A change came over his face, and he put his hand to his chin.

"No," he said. "I'll never go back there. I'm here"--he waved his pipe--"for keeps."

I looked at him in astonishment.

"Why?" I said, a little indignantly. "Are you not an Englishman?"

For a moment he did not reply to the blunt question, but looked down at the flags. His feet were cased in red velvet slippers, I noticed, and they struck me as quite indescribably bizarre in the moonlight. His hesitation was too ominous, heavy with unimaginable complexities. His voice was m.u.f.fled when he spoke.

"No," he said. "I'm--an alien."

At first I was impressed by the tone more than the words. It was mournful, with a streak of satisfaction in his condition that I felt was a.s.sumed.

"You mean," I said at last, "that you intend to take out papers?"

He looked at me queerly.

"How long would it take," he inquired with a smile, "to put in five years' residence, when I'm in the country about three days every two months? No, I don't think I'll bother about papers. When I say I'm here for keeps, I mean those belonging to me."

"There is a question I would like to ask you," I said, tentatively.

"I shall be very glad to answer it if I can," he replied.

"It refers to your little boys."