"What is your profession?"
I told him I was a romance-writer.
"What is that?"
"One who can guess by the end of a story what the whole story was from the beginning."
"Well, then, guess my story," said he, clasping my hand. "There was once a man who left a world in which he was admired, and created a second world in which he was loved."
"May I venture to ask your name?"
The old man seemed to grow a head taller; then raising his trembling hands, he laid them on my head. And at this moment it seemed to me as if once, long, long ago, that hand had rested on my head when childish curls covered it, and as if I had seen that noble face before.
To my question he replied, "My name is Nobody." With that he turned away and spoke no more, but went into his house, and did not appear again during our stay on the island.
This is the present condition of the ownerless island. The privilege granted by two kingdoms, that this speck of ground should be excluded from any map, will last for fifty years more.
Fifty years! Who knows what will have become of the world by then?