It appeared that he was a walker, and not afraid of rain. He proved it. On a May evening brewing thunder we did a dissolving view out of the city on a train for Cape Ann. At the end of the shore road around the Cape awaited lodgings at an inn and a midnight supper. At Gloucester he was introduced to one of Wonson's clam chowders and we set off at dusk.

That evening came the first inkling of his larger purpose—his higher than personal ambition: what he would paint after his portraits assured him a livelihood. Something was said about Pittsburgh and the mills.

"They ought to be painted," said he, "exactly as they are. Not sentimentalized like the magazine covers; not made romantic, as Joseph Pennell has made them; but painted in all their horror. Some day. I don't know enough yet."

Thunder had been muttering distantly. The night had turned pitch black. There were sullen flashes, and drops began to patter. Would he be for turning back? Not he! Then the storm came crashing and pelting across the granite moors of the Cape. Gorgeous flashes which flushed the winding tidal inlets and the rocky hills a brilliant rose pink. Flash! Crash! Swish went the rain. And the harder it stormed the better he liked it. He strode along intoxicated with color and sound.

Near Annisquam is a double shade-row of willows overarching the road. Not far beyond, yellow lamplight was streaming from the windows of a tiny cottage. Wading knee-deep in wet grass we knocked.

Now it is a complicated process explaining to two aged New England spinsters on a lonely road at nine o'clock of a stormy night what your errand is, especially when you haven't any. They listened; lifted the lamp on us for an inspection—particularly on Fritz; one soon got used to seeing people inspect him furtively—and invited us in.

"Walkin' round the Cape to Rockport, be ye? And in the rain? For the fun of it! Well, come in and set down. I'd like to get a good look at someone who'd walk to Rockport in the rain for the fun of it. Set down, young gentlemen."

We set. They were sisters. One was small and timid: she was of the sort that remain naÏve to the end. The other was tall, angular and sardonic, with a mother wit smacking of the soil and the salt water. She addressed herself to Fritz:

"You ain't an escaped murderer, be ye?"

Fritz cackled lustily.

"How do you know I'm not?" said he.

"You look like that fella who's on trial in Boston now. I see his pictures in the paper ... and you come knockin' on the door at dead o' night in a thunder squall like in a story book."

"Would you say I looked like a murderer?" inquired Fritz with relish.

"You might look worse 'n him," replied our free-speech hostess. "By his pictures he's a good-lookin' fella. I says to Saide whiles we was weedin' garden this morning, 't wouldn't be safe to let him go now, for half the women in New England are ready to fall in love with him—he's been that advertised." She eyed us with her sardonic grin. I looked at Fritz. He was blushing.

To her shrewd Yankee wits we were clearly two lunatics, but harmless; and the object was to extract as much entertainment from us as the law allowed. Such was the tone of her farewell, half an hour later.

"If anyone asks who was here," said she, "I'll tell them it was two young fellas walkin' to Rockport in the rain for the fun of it.—And then they'll think I'm one!"

Past midnight, stumping dog-tired into the inn; cold meat and bread, ravenously devoured; bed, and the sleep of the just.

... Morning; and such a morning as never was. Quite forgetting to dress, Fritz lost himself staring out of the open window at the quaint harbor, the fishing fleet, the blue bay and the gaunt headlands until it was suggested to him that passers by might be enjoying him as much as he was enjoying the morning.

There was an hour for soaking it in before the train left for the city, and soak it in he did. A sea of pale blue, like molten glass, untroubled by a breeze; sky the deep blue of a morning after storms; air sweet with the scent of blossoming orchards and dooryard lilacs and tart with the tang of salt brine; merry twitter of robins; lazy splash of surf; the long headlands tapering down to the sea; the squat white tower of Straitsmouth light solitary on its rocky islet, "and overhead the lovely skies of May."

In the midst of it stood a young artist, dumb with delight. His eyes drank.

Oh brethren of the possessing class, ye who must own this and that before you can enjoy, this world can never give the bliss for which ye sigh. That pilgrimage cost less than $3.00 per.

Evening. Above the tiny grass-plat and spindling poplars in Mount Vernon Square floats the magic of a night in mid-June. The windows of the fifth-floor-back in 94 Charles are lighted and open to the breeze. From those of the Advent come gusts of music,—rumbles of organ and the fresh voices of boys: choir rehearsal. But I think the sounds which float down from the windows of 94 are more in tune with the night: peal after peal of infectious laughter. It was clear to the meanest order of intellect that Sisson was telling stories which were more joyous than dutiful: also that he had Fritz going. There was no mistaking that laugh.

A belated delivery man, basket on arm, pauses beside me to listen and grin.

"I bet that was a good one," says he. "Say, but can't that guy laugh!"