He was but a stripling when his father left him this
inheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort of
periodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wears
velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
To Kookoo's venerable property a certain old man used for many years to
come every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling children
who frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, but
whom all the neighbors designated by the title of 'Sieur George. It was
his wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward his
home, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowly
forward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scudding
briskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were a
tornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully,
sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes' doze, but
getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the
second story, with no little elation to find it still there.
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