Moss all about, I remember."
"Come along," said Wholesome. "The man is cracked, and in sunny weather
the crack widens."
And so we went away down street to our several tasks, chatting and
amused.
Those were most happy days for me, and I found at evening one of my
greatest pleasures when Schmidt called for me after our early tea and we
would stroll together down to the Delaware, where the great India ships
lay at wharves covered with casks of madeira and boxes of tea and
spices. Then we would put out in his little rowboat and pull away toward
Jersey, and, after a plunge in the river at Cooper's Point, would lazily
row back again while the spire of Christ Church grew dim against the
fading sunset, and the lights would begin to show here and there in the
long line of sombre houses. By this time we had grown to be sure
friends, and a little help from me at a moment when I chanced to guess
that he wanted money had made the bond yet stronger. So it came that he
talked to me, though I was but a lad, with a curious freedom, which very
soon opened to me a full knowledge of those with whom I lived.
One evening, when we had been drifting silently with the tide, he
suddenly said aloud, "A lion in the fleece of the sheep."
"What?" said I, laughing.
"I was thinking of Wholesome," he replied. "But you do not know him. Yet
he has that in his countenance which would betray a more cunning
creature."
"How so?" I urged, being eager to know more of the man who wore the garb
and tongue of Penn, and could swear roundly when moved.
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