An exceedingly tall, loose-jointed individual faced me. His clothing was nondescript, mostly rags and tatters. His trousers, frayed at the ends, came to an abrupt stop several inches above the tops of his run-down, rusty shoes, and the spaces between showed a dust-begrimed skin. He wore a coat of the Prince Albert pattern, much too small. Beneath this was some sort of shirt which would not admit of description. His face was gaunt and hairy. I will not say he wore a beard; the term would be incorrect. The hair grew in patches; sickly, stringy strands, with an extra tuft on the chin which curved sideways. I was forcibly reminded of a goat when I saw this chin-tuft. He wore a colorless, conical felt hat, broad-brimmed and bandless. The brim continued the slope of the crown in an unbroken line, producing a startling effect. There came to my mind the headgear of Hendrik Hudson's crew as depicted in the play of Rip Van Winkle. This specter-like apparition might well have been a ghost, but for the recent evidence of a strong pair of lungs. Beneath one arm, hugged to his side, the figure carried a bundle covered with oilcloth.
For the length of a half-dozen breaths we stood motionless and speechless. Then the figure began to nod its head at me, slowly, soberly, up and down, up and down, and with each movement the curved chin-tuft would shake. This senseless action irritated me. I don't know why, for it might just as well have caused amusement. But for some reason I felt anger rising within me; not violent, but enough to barb my tongue.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
My words were sharp, but that they did not cut I knew from the sprightly reply.
"I'm a fiddler, 'n' I don't want nothin'!"
Still the head bobbed, and the goat-tuft shook.
"You're nothing of the sort," I retorted; "you're a satyr, and you want a drink of whiskey!"