f land, and the
erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his
means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much
more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one
topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! Do you know such a
person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our friend," he
continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and
ill-favored personage, not particularly well calculated, one would say,
to insinuate himself with the softer sex. Yet, so far has this honest
fellow succeeded with one lady whom we wot of, that he anticipates,
from her abundant resources, the necessary funds for realizing his plan
in brick and mortar!"

Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of
Hollingsworth's character and purposes, that he burst into a fit of
merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already
alluded to, but immensely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess of his
delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band around the
upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of
his brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. This discovery
affected me very oddly.

I felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his
wonderful beauty of face, for aught I knew, might be removable like a
mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a
wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him
save the wicked expression of his grin. The fantasy of his spectral
character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his
strange mirth on my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as
himself.

By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own
cachinnation lasted a moment longer.

"Ah, excuse me!" said he. "Our interview seems to proceed more merrily
than it began."

"It ends here," answered I. "And I take shame to myself that my folly
has lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend."

"Pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and
laying his gloved hand on my sleeve. "One other favor I must ask of
you. You have a young person here at Blithedale, of whom I have
heard,--whom, perhaps, I have known,--and in whom, at all events, I
take a peculiar interest. She is one of those delicate, nervous young
creatures, not uncommon in New England, and whom I suppose