I remember to have once met in a smoking-car on a
Kansas railway one of these lonely ones, who, after plying me with
a thousand useless questions, finally elicited the fact that I knew
slightly a man who had once dwelt in his native town in Illinois.
During the rest of our journey the conversation turned chiefly upon
his fellow-townsman, whom it afterwards appeared that my Illinois
friend knew no better than I did. But he had established a link
between himself and his far-off home through me, and was happy.
While this was passing through my mind I took a fair look at him.
He was a spare young fellow, not more than thirty, with sandy hair
and eyebrows, and eyelashes so white as to be almost imperceptible.
He was dressed in black, somewhat to the "rearward o' the fashion,"
and I had an odd idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it
afterwards appeared I was right. His manner had the precision and
much of the dogmatism of the country schoolmaster, accustomed to
wrestle with the feeblest intellects. From his history, which he
presently gave me, it appeared I was right here also.
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