The buttons who admitted us was not so very starched and stiff, and he seemed to have been endowed with life as well as movement, and to have become actually a human being. For he smiled when he saw my daughter, and spoke pleasantly to her, so that I was persuaded that he was even glad to see her. And she, having thrown him some pleasantry, and a smile with it, dashed past him through the great hall and vanished. And he, still smiling, closed the door upon me, and I went in search of Old Goodwin, who deals not in uniforms and buttons.
I found him on that part of his piazza where stands the great telescope on its massive tripod. Before him there lay his ocean steamer at anchor, and he gazed at her steadily—but not through the telescope.
He turned his head as I came, and gave me his quiet smile of peace.
"Good-morning, Adam," he said. "I was just wishing that you would come."
Old Goodwin with his quiet smile—even in his clammer's clothes and his old stained rubber boots—is yet Goodwin the Rich. It is a marvel.
"Good-morning," I said. "And here I am to do with what you will—for the space of some hours."
"It may take some hours," he returned, "and it may be done in less."
I did not in the least know what he was talking about, but I was to find out. He was silent for some while.
"Any news lately?" he asked then.