He put on his hat and he
took his cane in his hand and as he started down the street he sought to
put smartness and springiness into his gait. If the attempt was a sorry
failure he, for one, did not appreciate the completeness of the failure.
He meant, anyhow, that his step no longer should be purposeless and
mechanical; that his walk should hereafter have intent in it. And as he
came down the porch steps he looked about him, not dully, with sick and
uninforming eyes, but with a livened interest in all familiar homely
things.

Coming to his gate he saw, near at hand, Squire Jonas, now a gnarled but
still sprightly octogenarian, leaning upon a fence post surveying the
universe at large, as was the squire's daily custom. He called out a
good morning and waved his stick in greeting toward the squire with a
gesture which he endeavored to make natural. His aging muscles, staled
by thirty-odd years of lack of practice at such tricks, merely made it
jerky and forced. Still, the friendly design was there, plainly to be
divined; and the neighborly tone of his voice. But the squire,
ordinarily the most courteous of persons, and certainly one of the most
talkative, did not return the salutation. Astonishment congealed his
faculties, tied his tongue and paralyzed his biceps. He stared dumbly a
moment, and then, having regained coherent powers, he jammed his
brown-varnished straw hat firmly upon his ancient poll and went
scrambling up his gravel walk as fast as two rheumatic underpinnings
would take him, and on into his house like a man bearing incredible and
unbelievable tidings.

Mr. Stackpole opened his gate and passed out and started down the
sidewalk. Midway of the next square he overtook a man he knew--an
elderly watchmaker, a Swiss by birth, who worked at Nagel's jewelry
store. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times he had passed this man upon
the street. Always before he had passed him with averted eyes and a
stiff nod of recognition. Now, coming up behind the other, Mr. Stackpole
bade him a cheerful good day. At the sound of the words the Swiss spun
on his heel, then gulped audibly and backed away, flinching almost as
though a blow had been aimed at him. He muttered some meaningless
something, confusedly: he stared at Mr. Stackpole with widened eyes like
one who beholds an apparition in the broad of the day; he stepped on his
own feet and got in his own way as he shrank to the outer edge of the
narrow pavement. Mr. Stackpo