velling, and he liked staying at home; he was so continually
occupied as to give an apparent activity to all his life, and yet he
was never too busy to be interrupted, especially if the intruder were
a woman or a child. He liked to be with people of his own age, whatever
their condition; he also liked old people because they were old, and
children because they were young. In travelling by rail, he would woo
crying babies out of their mothers' arms, and still them; it was always
his back that Irishwomen thumped, to ask if they must get out at the
next station; and he might be seen handing out decrepit paupers, as
if they were of royal blood and bore concealed sceptres in their old
umbrellas. Exquisitely nice in his personal habits, he had the practical
democracy of a good-natured young prince; he had never yet seen a human
being who awed him, nor one whom he had the slightest wish to awe.
His courtesy, had, therefore, that comprehensiveness which we call
republican, though it was really the least republican thing about him.
All felt its attraction; there was really no one who disliked him,
except Aunt Jane; and even she admitted that he was the only person who
knew how to cut her lead-pencil.

That cheerful English premier who thought that any man ought to find
happiness enough in walking London streets and looking at the lobsters
in the fish-markets, was not more easily satisfied than Malbone. He
liked to observe the groups of boys fishing at the wharves, or to hear
the chat of their fathers about coral-reefs and penguins' eggs; or to
sketch the fisher's little daughter awaiting her father at night on
some deserted and crumbling wharf, his blue pea-jacket over her fair
ring-leted head, and a great cat standing by with tail uplifted, her
sole protector. He liked the luxurious indolence of yachting, and
he liked as well to float in his wherry among the fleet of fishing
schooners getting under way after a three days' storm, each vessel
slipping out in turn from the closely packed crowd, and spreading its
white wings for flight. He liked to watch the groups of negro boys
and girls strolling by the window at evening, and strumming on the
banjo,--the only vestige of tropical life that haunts our busy Northern
zone. But he liked just as well to note the ways of well-dressed girls
and boys at croquet parties, or to sit at the club window and hear the
gossip. He was a jewel of a listener, and was not easily bored even when
Phila