on in idiotic amazement. An aged man sat smoking at the open
door of this promising habitation--a true specimen of a Neapolitan
grown old. The skin of his face was like a piece of brown parchment
scored all over with deep furrows and wrinkles, as though Time,
disapproving of the history he had himself penned upon it, had
scratched over and blotted out all records, so that no one should
henceforth be able to read what had once been clear writing. The only
animation left in him seemed to have concentrated itself in his eyes,
which were black and bead-like, and roved hither and thither with a
glance of ever-restless and ever-suspicious inquiry. He saw me coming
toward him, but he pretended to be absorbed in a profound study of the
patch of blue sky that gleamed between the closely leaning houses of
the narrow street. I accosted him--and he brought his gaze swiftly down
to my level, and stared at me with keen inquisitiveness.

"I have had a long tramp," I said, briefly, for he was not the kind of
man to whom I could explain my recent terrible adventure, "and I have
lost some of my clothes by an accident on the way. Can you sell me a
suit? Anything will do--I am not particular."

The old man took his pipe from his mouth.

"Do you fear the plague?" he asked.

"I have just recovered from an attack of it," I replied, coolly.

He looked at me attentively from head to foot, and then broke into a
low chuckling laugh.

"Ha! ha!" he muttered, half to himself, half to me. "Good--good! Here
is one like myself--not afraid--not afraid! We are not cowards. We do
not find fault with the blessed saints--they send the plague. The
beautiful plague!--I love it! I buy all the clothes I can get that are
taken from the corpses--they are nearly always excellent clothes. I
never clean them--I sell them again at once--yes--yes! Why not? The
people must die--the sooner the better! I help the good God as much as
I can." And the old blasphemer crossed himself devoutly.

I looked down upon him from where I stood drawn up to my full height,
with a glance of disgust. He filled me with something of the same
repulsion I had felt when I touched the unnameable Thing that fastened
on my neck while I slept in the vault.

"Come!" I said, somewhat roughly, "will you sell me a suit or no?"

"Yes, yes!" and he rose stiffly from his seat; he was very short of
stature, and so bent with age and infirmity that he looked more like
the crooked bough of a tree