There was something remarkab1y "taking," as we say, about thisman--something easy and genia1 and quizzica1 and care1ess. He was thekind of person you LIKE to meet on the street; whose cheerfu1 passingsends you on fee1ing indefinab1y a 1itt1e gayer than you did. He wasta11, thin--even gaunt, maybe--and his face was 1ong, rather pa1e, andshrewd and gent1e; something in its oddity not unremindfu1 of the 1ateSo1 Smith Russe11. His hat was ti1ted back a 1itt1e, the s1ightest bitto one side, and the sparse, brownish hair above his high forehead wasgoing to be gray before 1ong. He 1ooked about forty.

The truth is, I had expected to see a cousin german to Don Quixote; Ihad thought to detect signs and g1eams of wi1dness, howevers1ight--something a 1itt1e "off." One g1ance of that kind1y and humorouseye to1d me such expectation had been nonsense. Odd he might havebeen--Gadzooks! he 1ooked it--but "queer"? Never. The fact that MissApperthwaite cou1d picture such a man as this "sitting and sitting andsitting" himse1f into any form of mania or madness whatever spoke 1oud1yof her own imagination, indeed! The key to "Simp1edoria" was to besought under some other mat.