r early tea and we
would stroll together down to the Delaware, where the great India ships
lay at wharves covered with casks of madeira and boxes of tea and
spices. Then we would put out in his little rowboat and pull away toward
Jersey, and, after a plunge in the river at Cooper's Point, would lazily
row back again while the spire of Christ Church grew dim against the
fading sunset, and the lights would begin to show here and there in the
long line of sombre houses. By this time we had grown to be sure
friends, and a little help from me at a moment when I chanced to guess
that he wanted money had made the bond yet stronger. So it came that he
talked to me, though I was but a lad, with a curious freedom, which very
soon opened to me a full knowledge of those with whom I lived.

One evening, when we had been drifting silently with the tide, he
suddenly said aloud, "A lion in the fleece of the sheep."

"What?" said I, laughing.

"I was thinking of Wholesome," he replied. "But you do not know him. Yet
he has that in his countenance which would betray a more cunning
creature."

"How so?" I urged, being eager to know more of the man who wore the garb
and tongue of Penn, and could swear roundly when moved.

"If it will amuse," said the German, "I will tell you what it befell me
to hear to-day, being come into the parlor when Mistress White and
Wholesome were in the garden, of themselves lonely."

"Do you mean," said I, "that you listened when they did not know of your
being there?"

"And why not?" he replied. "It did interest me, and to them only good
might come."

"But," said I, "it was not--"

"Well?" he added as I paused. "--'Was not honor,' you were going to say
to me. And why not? I obey my nature, which is more curious than stocked
with honor. I did listen."

"And what did you hear?" said I.

"Ah, hear!" he answered. "What better is the receiver than is the thief?
Well, then, if you will share my stolen goods, you shall know, and I
will tell you as I heard, my memory being good."

"But--" said I.

"Too late you stop me," he added: "you must hear now."

The scene which he went on to sketch was to me strange and curious, nor
could I have thought he could give so perfect a rendering of the
language, and even the accent, of the two speakers. It was a curious
revelation of the man himself, and he seemed to enjoy his power, and yet
to suffer in the telling, without perhaps being fully conscious of it.
The o