“A cigar, sir?  Yes, sir.  What will it be?”

“A cigar?” Again the strange articulation.  “Ah, yes, that is it.  Now I remember.  And it has a little sister, the cigarette.  I think I shall take a cigarette, if—­if—­if you will show me how to use it.”

It was a strange request.  The clerk was accustomed to all manner of men and their brands of humour; he was about to answer in kind when he looked up and into the man’s eyes.  He started.

“You mean,” he asked, “that you have never seen a cigar or cigarette; that you do not know how to use them?  A man as old as you are.”

The stranger laughed.  It was rather resentful, but for all that of a hearty taint of humour.

“So old?  Would you say that I am as old as that; if you will look again—­”

The young man did and what he beheld is something that he could not quite account for:  the strange conviction of this remarkable man; of age melting into youth, of an uncertain freshness, the smile, not of sixty, but of twenty.  The young man was not one to argue, whatever his wonder; he was first of all a lad of business; he could merely acquiesce.

“The first time!  This is the first time you have ever seen a cigar or cigarette?”

The stranger nodded.

“The first time.  I have never beheld one of them before this morning.  If you will allow me?” He indicated a package.  “I think I shall take one of these.”

The clerk took up the package, opened the end, and shook out a single cigarette.  The man lit it and, as the smoke poured out of his mouth, held the cigarette tentatively in his fingers.

“Like it?” It was the clerk who asked.

The other did not answer, his whole face was the expression of having just discovered one of the senses.  He was a splendid man and, if the word may be employed of the sterner sex, one of beauty.  His features were even; that is to be noted, his nose chiselled straight and to perfection, the eyes of a peculiar sombreness and lustre almost burning, of a black of such intensity as to verge into red and to be devoid of pupils, and yet, for all of that, of a glow and softness.  After a moment he turned to the clerk.

“You are young, my lad.”

“Twenty-one, sir.”

“You are fortunate.  You live in a wonderful age.  It is as wonderful as your tobacco.  And you still have many great things before you.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man walked on to the forward part of the boat; leaving the youth, who had been in a sort of daze, watching.  But it was not for long.  The whole thing had been strange and to the lad almost inexplicable.  The man was not insane, he was certain; and he was just as sure that he had not been joking.  From the start he had been taken by the man’s refinement, intellect and education.  He was positive that he had been sincere.  Yet—­

The ferry detective happened at that moment to be passing.  The clerk made an indication with his thumb.