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"Does he?" said my grandfather. "Well, I know why. It's near the end of the month."

"He's a darling," Cousin Clothilde said again. "He rowed across the river last week. He brought me some white gentians. He's written a new poem about the river."

"Did he have on shoes?" my grandfather asked.

"Yes," said Cousin Clothilde, "of course he did. He's a darling."

"He's a humbug," my grandfather said, "and he isn't reliable."

Although the word "humbug" was new to me, it was obviously a term of derision. An inherited sense of fitness told me that it was an improper description of a great man. I remembered how old John Brill had placed his hand upon my head when I had been led to meet him. There had been a malodorous aura about his clothes, of apples, wood smoke, pine shavings and chewing tobacco.

"Another little pilgrim," he had said. "Intimations of immortality—you can see it in his eyes. Yes, Sarah my dear, I could manage with another cup of tea and two more buns."

My grandfather smiled again, and again I realized that he was not being unkind.