Under the tiny bridge, a correspondingly tiny brook purled without surcease, its heart set upon somewhere finding the sea.  Over their heads a glorious maple was taking off its coat of many colors in the wind.  Sharlee put back a small hand into a large muff and said:—­

“At church this morning I saw Colonel Cowles.  He told me about you.  I don’t know how you look at it, but I think you’re a subject for the heartiest congratulations.  So here are mine.”

“The men at the Mercury were pleased, too,” mused Mr. Queed, looking out over the landscape.  “Do you ever read my articles now?”

“For many years,” said Sharlee, evasively, “I have always read the Post from cover to cover.  It’s been to me like those books you see in the advertisements and nowhere else.  Grips the reader from the start, and she cannot lay it down till the last page is turned.”

A brief smile appeared in the undisguised eyes.  “Do you notice any distinctions now between me and the Encyclopedia Britannica?”

“Unless you happen to refer to Lombroso or Buckle or Aristotle or Plato,” said Sharlee, not noticing the smile, “I never know whether it’s your article or Colonel Cowles’s.  Do you mind walking on?  It’s nearly time for my car.”

“A year ago,” said he, “I certainly should not have liked that.  I do now, since it means that I have succeeded in what I set out to do.  I’ve thought a good deal about that tired bricklayer this summer,” he went on, quite unembarrassed.  “By the way, I know one personally now:  Timrod Burns, of the Mercury.  Only I can’t say that I ever saw Timmy tired.”

Down the woodland path they passed side by side, headed for the little station known as Stop 11.  Sharlee was pleased that he had remembered about the bricklayer; she could have been persuaded that his remark was vaguely intended to convey some sort of thanks to her.  But saying no more of this, she made it possible to introduce casually a reference to his vanished glasses.

“Yes,” said he, “I knocked them off the bureau and broke them one day.  So I just let them go.  They were rather striking-looking glasses, I always thought.  I don’t believe I ever saw another pair quite like them.”

“But,” said Sharlee, puzzled, “do you find that you can see perfectly well without them?”

“Oh, yes; if anything, better.”  He paused, and added with entire seriousness:  “You see those spectacles, striking-looking as they were, were only window-glass.  I bought them at a ten-cent store on Sixth Avenue when I was twelve years old.”

“Oh!  What made you do that?”

“All the regulars at the Astor Library wore them.  At the time it seemed to be the thing to do, and of course they soon became second nature to me.  But I daresay no one ever had a sounder pair of eyes than I.”

To Sharlee this seemed one of the most pathetic of all his confidences; she offered no comment.