"I should have thought," I remarked, "that you would have made your home there rather than here."
"There's some who do," he said. "Lots of the Anchor Line men do. But personally I'd rather be here."
"It is very like England," I agreed, as he broke in.
"Sure," he said. "I was just thinking as I came up the hill. I come from Hertfordshire myself. Very like the Northern Heights."
"We always think," I answered, "that it is like Essex."
He pondered for a moment, enjoying his pipe.
"Well, it is," he decided. "You mean looking over Staten Island to the sea? Yes, only they're busier here than along Mersea Flats, eh? Oh yes, I used to know that part when I was a boy. There isn't much between Chipping Barnet and Hamford Water that I didn't know in those days."
"You will go back some day?" I said as we turned. A change came over his face, and he put his hand to his chin.
"No," he said. "I'll never go back there. I'm here"--he waved his pipe--"for keeps."
"Why?" I said, a little indignantly. "Are you not an Englishman?"
For a moment he did not reply to the blunt question, but looked down at the flags. His feet were cased in red velvet slippers, I noticed, and they struck me as quite indescribably bizarre in the moonlight. His hesitation was too ominous, heavy with unimaginable complexities. His voice was muffled when he spoke.
At first I was impressed by the tone more than the words. It was mournful, with a streak of satisfaction in his condition that I felt was assumed.
"You mean," I said at last, "that you intend to take out papers?"
"How long would it take," he inquired with a smile, "to put in five years' residence, when I'm in the country about three days every two months? No, I don't think I'll bother about papers. When I say I'm here for keeps, I mean those belonging to me."
"There is a question I would like to ask you," I said, tentatively.
"I shall be very glad to answer it if I can," he replied.
"Why," he broke in, "they haven't been annoying you, have they? I hope they haven't done that!"
"Not at all. I merely had a curiosity to know why they bear such unusual names."
"They were good enough to commend me for the way I played Indian," I explained, and he gave me another of his quick comprehensive glances.