A Matter of Interest | Page 2

the beach, biting my pencil reflectively,
tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the
surf, a thought occurred to me: how unpleasant it would be if I
suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility
flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand dune.
A summer girl stood directly in my path.
If I jumped, I think the young lady has pardoned me by this time. She
ought to, because she also started, and said something in a very faint
voice. What she said was "Oh!"
She stared at me as though I had just crawled up out of the sea to bite
her. I don't know what my own expression resembled, but I have been
given to understand it was idiotic.
Now I perceived, after a few moments, that the young lady was
frightened, and I knew I ought to say something civil. So I said, "Are
there any mosquitoes here?"
"No," she replied, with a slight quiver in her voice; "I have only seen
one, and it was biting somebody else."

I looked foolish; the conversation seemed so futile, and the young lady
appeared to be more nervous than before. I had an impulse to say, "Do
not run; I have breakfasted," for she seemed to be meditating a plunge
into the breakers. What I did say was: "I did not know anybody was
here. I do not intend to intrude. I come from Captain McPeek's, and I
am writing an ode to the ocean." After I had said this it seemed to ring
in my ears like, "I come from Table Mountain, and my name is
Truthful James."
I glanced timidly at her.
"She's thinking of the same thing," said I to myself. "What an ass I
must appear!"
However, the young lady seemed to be a trifle reassured. I noticed she
drew a sigh of relief and looked at my shoes. She looked so long that it
made me suspicious, and I also examined my shoes. They seemed to be
fairly respectable.
"I--I am sorry," she said, "but would you mind not walking on the
beach?"
This was sudden. I had intended to retire and leave the beach to her, but
I did not fancy being driven away so abruptly.
"I was about to withdraw, madam," said I, bowing stiffly; "I beg you
will pardon any inconvenience--"
"Dear me!" she cried, "you don't understand. I do not--I would not
think for a moment of asking you to leave Pine Inlet. I merely ventured
to request you to walk on the dunes. I am so afraid that your footprints
may obliterate the impressions that my father is studying."
"Oh!" said I, looking about me as though I had been caught in the
middle of a flower-bed; "really I did not notice any impressions.
Impressions of what--if I may be permitted?"
"I don't know," she said, smiling a little at my awkward pose. "If you

step this way in a straight line you can do no damage."
I did as she bade me. I suppose my movements resembled the gait of a
wet peacock. Possibly they recalled the delicate manœuvres of the
kangaroo. Anyway, she laughed.
This seriously annoyed me. I had been at a disadvantage; I walk well
enough when let alone.
"You can scarcely expect," said I, "that a man absorbed in his own
ideas could notice impressions on the sand. I trust I have obliterated
nothing."
As I said this I looked back at the long line of footprints stretching
away in prospective across the sand. They were my own. How large
they looked! Was that what she was laughing at?
"I wish to explain," she said gravely, looking at the point of her parasol.
"I am very sorry to be obliged to warn you--to ask you to forego the
pleasure of strolling on a beach that does not belong to me. Perhaps,"
she continued, in sudden alarm, "perhaps this beach belongs to you?"
"The beach? Oh, no," I said.
"But--but you were going to write poems about it?"
"Only one-and that does not necessitate owning the beach. I have
observed," said I frankly, "that the people who own nothing write many
poems about it."
She looked at me seriously.
"I write many poems," I added.
She laughed doubtfully.
"Would you rather I went away?" I asked politely.
"I? Why, no--I mean that you may do as you please--except please do

not walk on the beach."
"Then I do not alarm you by my presence?" I inquired. My clothes
were a bit ancient. I wore them shooting, sometimes. "My family is
respectable," I added; and I told her my name.
"Oh! Then you wrote 'Culled Cowslips' and 'Faded Fig-Leaves,' and
you imitate Maeterlinck, and you--Oh, I know lots of people that you