Despite the evident poverty of the interior, a certain air of refinement pervaded everything.  Even the old man’s bare feet did not detract from it.  These, by the way, he never referred to; it was evidently a habit with him.  I felt this refinement not only in the relics of what seemed to denote better days, but in the arrangement of the table, the placing of the tea tray and the providing of a separate pot for the hot water.  Their voices, too, were low, characteristic of people who live alone and in peace,—­especially the old man’s.

Brockway resumed his seat and continued talking, asking about the city as if it were a thousand miles away instead of being almost at his door; of the artists,—­their mode of life, their successes, etc.  As he talked his eye brightened and his manner became more gentle.  It was only his outside that seemed to belong to an old boatman, roughened by the open air, with hands hard and brown.  Yet these were well shaped, with tapering fingers.  One bore a gold ring curiously marked and worn to a thread.

I asked about the fishing, hoping the subject would lead him to talk of his own life, and so solve the doubt in my mind as to his class and antecedents.  His replies showed his thorough knowledge of his trade.  He deplored the scarcity of bass, now that the steamboats and factories fouled the river; the decrease of the oysters, of which he had several beds, all being injured by the same cause.  Then he broke out against the encroachments of the real estate pirates, as he called them, staking out lots behind the Hulk and destroying his privacy.

“But you own the marsh?” I asked carelessly.  I saw instantly in his face the change working in his mind.  He looked at me searchingly, almost fiercely, and said, weighing each word,—­

“Not one foot, young man,—­do you hear?—­not one foot!  Own nothing but what you see.  But this hulk is mine,—­mine from the mud to the ridgepole, with every rotten timber in it.”

The outburst was so sudden that I rose from my chair.  For a moment he seemed consumed with an inward rage,—­not directed to me in any way,—­more as if the memory of some past wrong had angered him.

Here the child, with an anxious face, rose quickly from her seat by the window, and laid her hand on his.

The old man looked into her face for a moment, and then, as if her touch had softened him, rose courteously, took her arm, seated her at the table and then me.  In a moment more he had regained his gentle manner.

The meal was a frugal one, broiled fish and potatoes, a loaf of bread, and stewed apples served in a cut glass dish with broken handles.

The meal over, the girl replaced the cotton cloth with a red one, retrimmed the lamps, and disappeared into an adjoining room, carrying the dishes.  The old man lighted his pipe and seated himself in a large chair, smoking on in silence.  I opened my portfolio and began retouching the sketches of the morning.