The Speck on the Lens - Page 2

story," he continued. "I was lying
there in my hammock one afternoon trying to take a census of the
butterflies in sight, when I thought I heard some one back of me call me
by name. Instantly the butterfly census was forgotten, and I was on the
alert; but--whether there was something the matter with my eyes or not, I
do not know--despite all my alertness, there wasn't a soul in sight that I
could see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at first, and then I
attributed the interruption either to imagination or to some passer-by,
whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might have reached my ears. I threw
myself back into the hammock once more, and was just about dozing off to
the lullaby sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the rustling leaves,
when I again heard my name distinctly spoken.

"This time there was no mistake about it, for as I sprang to my feet and
looked about, I saw coming towards me a man of unpleasantly cadaverous
aspect, whose years, I should judge, were at least eighty in number. His
beard was so long and scant that, to keep the breezes from blowing it
about to his discomfort, he had tucked the ends of it into his vest
pocket; his eyes, black as coals, were piercing as gimlets, their
sharpness equalled by nothing that I had ever seen, excepting perhaps the
point of this same person's nose, which was long and thin, suggesting a
razor with a bowie point; his slight body was clad in sombre garb, and at
first glance he appeared to me so disquietingly like a visitor from the
supernatural world that I shuddered; but when he spoke, his voice was all
gentleness, and whatever of fear I had experienced was in a moment
dissipated.

"'You are Doctor Carey?' he said, in a timid sort of fashion.

"'Yes,' I replied; 'I am. What can I do for you?'

"'The distinguished oculist?' he added, as if not hearing my question.

"'Well, I'm a sort of notorious eye-doctor,' I answered, my well-known
modesty preventing my entire acquiescence in his manner of putting it.

"He smiled pleasantly as I said this, and then drew out of his coat-tail
pocket a small tin box, which, until he opened it, I supposed contained a
drinking-cup--one of those folding tin cups.

"'Doctor Carey,' said he, sitting down in the hammock which I had vacated,
and toying with the tin box--a proceeding that was so extraordinarily cool
that it made me shiver--'I have been looking for you for just sixty-three
mortal years.'

"'Excuse me,' I returned, as nonchalantly as I could, considering the fact
that I was beginning to be annoyed--'excuse me, but that statement seems
to indicate that I was born famous, which I'm inclined to doubt. Inasmuch
as I am not yet fifty years old, I