“Good morning!” I said. “Any ducks about?”

He paused, nodded and fell into step with me.

“No,—not enough to pay for the trouble.”

“I’m sorry for that. I’d hoped to pick up a few.”

“I guess you’re a stranger in these parts,” he remarked, eying me again,—my knickerbockers no doubt marking me as an alien.

“Quite so. My name is Glenarm, and I’ve just come.”

“I thought you might be him. We’ve rather been expecting you here in the village. I’m John Morgan, caretaker of the resorter’ houses up the lake.”

“I suppose you all knew my grandfather hereabouts.”

“Well, yes; you might say as we did, or you might say as we didn’t. He wasn’t just the sort that you got next to in a hurry. He kept pretty much to himself. He built a wall there to keep us out, but he needn’t have troubled himself. We’re not the kind around here to meddle, and you may be sure the summer people never bothered him.”

There was a tone of resentment in his voice, and I hastened to say:

“I’m sure you’re mistaken about the purposes of that wall. My grandfather was a student of architecture. It was a hobby of his. The house and wall were in the line of his experiments, and to please his whims. I hope the people of the village won’t hold any hard feelings against his memory or against me. Why, the labor there must have been a good thing for the people hereabouts.”

“It ought to have been,” said the man gruffly; “but that’s where the trouble comes in. He brought a lot of queer fellows here under contract to work for him,— Italians, or Greeks, or some sort of foreigners. They built the wall, and he had them at work inside for half a year. He didn’t even let them out for air; and when they finished his job he loaded ‘em on to a train one day and hauled ‘em away.”

“That was quite like him, I’m sure,” I said, remembering with amusement my grandfather’s secretive ways.

“I guess he was a crank all right,” said the man conclusively.

It was evident that he did not care to establish friendly relations with the resident of Glenarm. He was about forty, light, with a yellow beard and pale blue eyes. He was dressed roughly and wore a shabby soft hat.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to assume responsibility for him and his acts,” I remarked, piqued by the fellow’s surliness.

We had reached the center of the village, and he left me abruptly, crossing the street to one of the shops. I continued on to the railway station, where I wrote and paid for my message. The station-master inspected me carefully as I searched my pockets for change.

“You want your telegrams delivered at the house?” he asked.