use a picture is old it's a masterpiece, and
because it's new it's junk. We ought to take longer views. How do _we_
know what the youngsters are going to do?"

"That indeed is on the knees of the gods," I said as I put the _Heine_
back on the shelf. I looked at my watch.

"I must be off to Pleasant Plains," I said. "If you are not going out at
once, I should like to return in the afternoon; but I must run now."

"I expect we'll be bunkered and out by tea-time," he said, rising.
"Still, some other time.... We're not away very long, month or so...."

He followed me to the gangway and I bade him farewell and _bon-voyage_.
He had donned a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and a cap with a
badge and gold cord on it. The effect on my mind was somewhat
disquieting. He seemed to have vanished behind an official mask, a mask
whose sympathy with and knowledge of me was inexpressibly remote. I
looked back as I crossed over towards the ferry, and saw him in deep
conversation with the Chief Officer.

It was between four and five when I boarded the Staten Island ferry once
more. The wind had gone down with the sun, whose red globe flung long
bars of ruddy gold athwart the still water. I took my stand on the
upper deck. Once again I looked across the bay and beheld that wonderful
vision of New York floating above a blue haze, a mass of glittering
pinnacles and rose-pink walls flaunting snowy pennants of white vapour,
and looped to the sombre vagueness of Brooklyn by the long catenary
curves of the suspension bridges. As the steamer started I walked aft,
that I might not see the dissolution of the phantasy. It may be a
weakness; but there is to me, mingled with all perception of beauty, a
feeling akin to pain. Often I have envied those more robust souls who
can gaze with unfaltering eyes at the beauty of this world, and feel no
pang. I am not so. I was absorbed in this thought when I saw a steamer
with two red funnels coming round from the Kills. At the masthead blew a
flag with a blue eagle. As she came across our track I saw that she was
the _Raritan_. On the poop-deck was a familiar figure, short, rotund and
blue. I stepped to the end of the deck and waved my hand. Mr. Carville
was walking back and forth, hands in pockets, his corn-cob pipe in his
mouth. He paused and caught my signal, answering heartily. As the
distance between us increased he resumed his promenade, and the
_Raritan_, threading the Narrows, dwindled to a