Later on she felt inspired to jot down, for use no doubt in some future literary production, a concise, though general, description of the magnificent Mr. Barnes. She utilised the back of the bill-of-fare and she wrote with the feverish ardour of one who dreads the loss of a first impression. I herewith append her visual estimate of the hero of this story.
"He was a tall, shapely speciman of mankind," wrote Miss Tilly. "Broad-shouldered. Smooth shaved face. Penetrating grey eyes. Short curly hair about the colour of mine. Strong hands of good shape. Face tanned considerable. Heavy dark eyebrows. Good teeth, very white. Square chin. Lovely smile that seemed to light up the room for everybody within hearing. Nose ideal. Mouth same. Voice aristocratic and reverberating with education. Age about thirty or thirty one. Rich as Croesus. Costume resembling the picture in the English novel the woman forgot and left here last summer. Well turned legs. Would make a good nobleman."
All this would appear to be reasonably definite were it not for the note regarding the colour of his hair. It leaves to me the simple task of completing the very admirable description of Mr. Barnes by announcing that Miss Tilly's hair was an extremely dark brown.
Also it is advisable to append the following biographical information: Thomas Kingsbury Barnes, engineer, born in Montclair, New Jersey, Sept. 26, 1885. Cornell and Beaux Arts, Paris. Son of the late Stephen S. Barnes, engineer, and Edith (Valentine) Barnes. Office, Metropolitan Building, New York City. Residence, Amsterdam Mansions. Clubs: (Lack of space prevents listing them here). Recreations: golf, tennis, and horseback riding. Author of numerous articles resulting from expeditions and discoveries in Peru and Ecuador. Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Member of the Loyal Legion and the Sons of the American Revolution.
Added to this, the mere announcement that he was in a position to indulge a fancy for long and perhaps aimless walking tours through more or less out of the way sections of his own country, to say nothing of excursions in Europe.
Needless to say, he obtained a great deal of pleasure from these lonely jaunts, and at the same time laid up for future use an ample supply of mind's ease. His was undoubtedly a romantic nature. He loved the fancies that his susceptibilities garnered from the hills and dales and fields and forests. He never tired of the changing prospect; the simple meadow and the inspiring mountain peak were as one to his generous imagination. He found something worth while in every mile he traversed in these long and solitary tramps, and he covered no fewer than twenty of them between breakfast and dinner unless ordered by circumstance to loiter along the way.
Each succeeding spring he set out from his "diggings" in New York without having the remotest idea where his peregrinations would carry him. It was his habit to select a starting point in advance, approach that spot by train or ship or motor, and then divest himself of all purpose except to fare forward until he came upon some haven for the night. He went east or west, north or south, even as the winds of heaven blow; indeed, he not infrequently followed them.
For five or six weeks in the early spring it was his custom to forge his daily chain of miles and, when the end was reached, climb contentedly aboard a train and be transported, often by arduous means, to the city where millions of men walk with a definite aim in view. He liked the spring of the year. He liked the rains and the winds of early spring. They meant the beginning of things to him.
He was rich. Perhaps not as riches are measured in these Midas-like days, but rich beyond the demands of avarice. His legacy had been an ample one. The fact that he worked hard at his profession from one year's end to the other,—not excluding the six weeks devoted to these mentally productive jaunts,—is proof sufficient that he was not content to subsist on the fruits of another man's enterprise. He was a worker. He was a creator, a builder and a destroyer. It was part of his ambition to destroy in order that he might build the better.
The first fortnight of a proposed six weeks' jaunt through Upper New England terminated when he laid aside his heavy pack in the little bed-room at Hart's Tavern. Cock-crow would find him ready and eager to begin his third week. At least, so he thought. But, truth is, he had come to his journey's end; he was not to sling his pack for many a day to come.