The meal had been an unexpected one.  He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence for traditions.  They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square.  One of their traditional habits was to station a servant at the postern gate with orders to admit the first hungry wayfarer that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish.  Stuffy Pete happened to pass by on his way to the park, and the seneschals gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.

After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision.  With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left.  And then his eyes bulged out fearfully, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel.

For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench.  That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of.  Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner.  They do those things in England unconsciously.  But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad.  The Old Gentleman was a staunch American patriot, and considered himself a pioneer in American tradition.  In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us.  Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance.  Or cleaning the streets.

The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing.  Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England.  But it was a step.  It was almost feudal.  It showed, at least, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y—­ahem!—­America.

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty.  He was dressed all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won’t stay on your nose.  His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle.

As his established benefactor came up Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some woman’s over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him.  He would have flown, but all the skill of Santos-Dumont could not have separated him from his bench.  Well had the myrmidons of the two old ladies done their work.

“Good morning,” said the Old Gentleman.  “I am glad to perceive that the vicissitudes of another year have spared you to move in health about the beautiful world.  For that blessing alone this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us.  If you will come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being accord with the mental.”