We

answered him and he sat down beside us on the slope slowly and

with great care. He began to talk of the weather, saying that it

would be a very hot summer and adding that the seasons had

changed gready since he was a boy--a long time ago. He said that

the happiest time of one's life was undoubtedly one's schoolboy

days and that he would give anything to be young again. While he

expressed these sentiments which bored us a little we kept silent.

Then he began to talk of school and of books. He asked us whether

we had read the poetry of Thomas Moore or the works of Sir

Walter Scott and Lord Lytton. I pretended that I had read every

book he mentioned so that in the end he said:


"Ah, I can see you are a bookworm like myself. Now," he added,

pointing to Mahony who was regarding us with open eyes, "he is

different; he goes in for games."


He said he had all Sir Walter Scott's works and all Lord Lytton's

works at home and never tired of reading them. "Of course," he

said, "there were some of Lord Lytton's works which boys couldn't

read." Mahony asked why couldn't boys read them--a question

which agitated and pained me because I was afraid the man would

think I was as stupid as Mahony. The man, however, only smiled. I

saw that he had great gaps in his mouth between his yellow teeth.

Then he asked us which of us had the most sweethearts. Mahony

mentioned lightly that he had three totties. The man asked me how

many I had. I answered that I had none. He did not believe me and

said he was sure I must have one. I was silent.


"Tell us," said Mahony pertly to the man, "how many have you

yourself?"


The man smiled as before and said that when he was our age he

had lots of sweethearts.


"Every boy," he said, "has a little sweetheart."


His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of

his age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and

sweethearts was reasonable. But I disliked the words in his mouth

and I wondered why he shivered once or twice as if he feared

something or felt a sudden chill. As he proceeded I noticed that his

accent was good. He began to speak to us about girls, saying what

nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands were and how all

girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only knew.

There was nothing he liked, he said, so much as looking at a nice

young girl, at her nice white hands and her beautiful soft hair. He

gave me the impression that he was repeating something which he

had learned by heart or that, magnetised by some words of his own

speech, his mind was slowly circling round and round in the same

orbit. At times he spoke as if he were simply alluding to some fact

that everybody knew, and at times he lowered his voice and spoke

mysteriously as if he were telling us something secret which he did

not wish others to overhear. He repeated his phrases over and over

again, varying them and surrounding them with his monotonous

voice. I continued to gaze towards the foot of the slope, listening

to him.


After a long while his monologue paused. He stood up slowly,

saying that he had to leave us for a minute or so, a few minutes,

and, without changing the direction of my gaze, I saw him walking

slowly away from us towards the near end of the field. We

remained silent when he had gone. After a silence of a few

minutes I heard Mahony exclaim:


"I say! Look what he's doing!"


As I neither answered nor raised my eyes Mahony exclaimed

again:


"I say... He's a queer old josser!"


"In case he asks us for our names," I said "let you be Murphy and I'll

be Smith."


We said nothing further to each other. I was still considering

whether I would go away or not when the man came back and sat

down beside us again. Hardly had he sat down when Mahony,

catching sight of the cat which had escaped him, sprang up and

pursued her across the field. The man and I watched the chase.