“Ah!” said he, with more emphasis than was usual with him.  “It is Mr. Coverdale!”

“Yes, Mr. Moodie, your old acquaintance,” answered I.  “It is some time now since we ate luncheon together at Blithedale, and a good deal longer since our little talk together at the street corner.”

“That was a good while ago,” said the old man.

And he seemed inclined to say not a word more.  His existence looked so colorless and torpid,—­so very faintly shadowed on the canvas of reality,—­that I was half afraid lest he should altogether disappear, even while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure.  He was certainly the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with his crazy hat, the dingy handkerchief about his throat, his suit of threadbare gray, and especially that patch over his right eye, behind which he always seemed to be hiding himself.  There was one method, however, of bringing him out into somewhat stronger relief.  A glass of brandy would effect it.  Perhaps the gentler influence of a bottle of claret might do the same.  Nor could I think it a matter for the recording angel to write down against me, if—­with my painful consciousness of the frost in this old man’s blood, and the positive ice that had congealed about his heart—­I should thaw him out, were it only for an hour, with the summer warmth of a little wine.  What else could possibly be done for him?  How else could he be imbued with energy enough to hope for a happier state hereafter?  How else be inspired to say his prayers?  For there are states of our spiritual system when the throb of the soul’s life is too faint and weak to render us capable of religious aspiration.

“Mr. Moodie,” said I, “shall we lunch together?  And would you like to drink a glass of wine?”

His one eye gleamed.  He bowed; and it impressed me that he grew to be more of a man at once, either in anticipation of the wine, or as a grateful response to my good fellowship in offering it.

“With pleasure,” he replied.

The bar-keeper, at my request, showed us into a private room, and soon afterwards set some fried oysters and a bottle of claret on the table; and I saw the old man glance curiously at the label of the bottle, as if to learn the brand.

“It should be good wine,” I remarked, “if it have any right to its label.”

“You cannot suppose, sir,” said Moodie, with a sigh, “that a poor old fellow like me knows any difference in wines.”

And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the gustatory skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was impossible not to recognize the connoisseur.

“I fancy, Mr. Moodie,” said I, “you are a much better judge of wines than I have yet learned to be.  Tell me fairly,—­did you never drink it where the grape grows?”

“How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale?” answered old Moodie shyly; but then he took courage, as it were, and uttered a feeble little laugh.  “The flavor of this wine,” added he, “and its perfume still more than its taste, makes me remember that I was once a young man.”