“Yes, but I bet if everything was known—” thought Miss Riordan.
Just then she became aware that some one was looking at her—some one who had sat down beside her. She began to assume various expressions of interest in her magazine. She frowned, as if absorbed. She raised her eyebrows, amazed. She smiled and shook her head, incredulous. Then, as she turned the page, she cast a furtive sidelong glance, to see who it was.
It was a little old man with a woeful face. His wrinkled brow, his hanging jowls, and his sad, dim old eyes gave him rather the look of a superannuated hound. Perhaps he was pathetic, but not to Miss Riordan. She was very angry. She stared at him in haughty surprise, and turned back to her magazine; but she could still feel his eyes fixed upon her.
“The nerve of the man!” she thought indignantly.
Presently he moved a little nearer and cleared his throat, as if about to speak. This time she gave him a look calculated to destroy; but, just the same, he did speak.
“I see you are reading Travel,” he said.
She glared at him.
“I have had the honor of contributing one or two articles to that publication,” he went on. “Little sketches of my various journeys; but after all—” He smiled. “After all,” he said, “east or west, home is best. I always return to Staten Island with renewed appreciation.”
Miss Riordan was perturbed. She did not wholly understand this speech, but she was impressed, and she was embarrassed. Clearly she had misjudged this man. There was no occasion here for haughty glances. He was venerable.
“Yes,” he continued, “I find a rare combination of beauties in Staten Island. The stirring panorama of the bay, with ships from the four corners of the earth, the drowsy little hamlets, and the hills. The words of our national anthem have always seemed to me peculiarly applicable to the island—‘I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills.’ May I ask if you are a resident?”