"Oh, I don't know; something about your appearance told me who it was.
I'm mighty glad to see you, any way. When did you arrive?"
"I came on here yesterday. Been down in Terra del Fuego, where I heard about the Centennial, and I thought I'd run up and have a look at it. Be a good thing, I reckon. Time flies, though, don't it? Seems to me only yesterday that a man over here in Siberia told me that you people were fighting your Revolutionary war."
[Illustration: THE WANDERING JEW]
He sat upon the fence as he talked; his feet, cased in gum shoes, rested on the third rail from the bottom; his umbrella was under his arm; his face was deeply wrinkled, and his long white beard bobbed up and down as he ate his lunch voraciously, diving into his carpet-bag every now and then for more. The reporter remarked that he feared that such a liberal diet of cheese would disagree with the eater, but the old man said,
"Why, my goodness, sonny, I've been hunting all over the earth for seventeen centuries for something to disagree with me. That's what I yearn for. If I could only get dyspepsia once, I might hope to wear myself out. But it's no use. I could lunch on a pound of nails and feel as comfortable as a baby after a bottle of milk. That's one of my peculiarities. You know nothing ever hurts me. Why, I've been thrown out of volcanoes—lemme see: well, dozens of times—and never been singed a bit. 'Most always, in real cold weather, I step over to Italy and roost around inside of Vesuvius; and then, maybe, there's an eruption, and I'm heaved out a couple of hundred miles or so, but always safe and sound. What I don't know about volcanic eruptions, my child, isn't worth knowing. I went sailing around through the air when Pompeii was destroyed. Yes, sir, I was there; saw the whole thing. Why, I could tell you the most wonderful stories. You wouldn't believe."
"How do you travel generally?"
"Oh, different ways. I have gone around some in sleeping-cars, and had my baggage checked through; but generally I prefer to walk. I'm never in a hurry, and I like to take my own route. I'm a mighty good walker. I did think of getting up some kind of a pedestrian match with some of your champion walkers, but it's no use; it'd only create an excitement."
"How do people treat you usually?"
"Well, I can't complain. Snap me up for a tramp sometimes, or make disagreeable remarks about me. But generally I get along well enough. The undertakers are hardest on me. They say I exercise a depressing influence on their business by setting a bad example to other people; and one of 'em, over in Constantinople, he said a man who'd defrauded about fifty-four generations of undertakers ought to be ashamed to show his face in civilized society. But bless you, sonny, I don't mind them. Business, you know, is business. It's perfectly natural for them to feel that way about it; now, isn't it?"
"Will you have a cigar, after eating?"