Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/44

 "Hurrah!" Harkness cried.

"I beg your pardon" the old man said, looking up.

Harkness blushed. "I was reading something rather fine," he said, smiling.

"You'd better look out for what you're reading, to whom you're speaking, where you're walking, what you're eating, everything, when you're in Treliss," he remarked.

"Why? Is it so dangerous a place?" asked Harkness.

"It doesn't like tourists. I've seen it do funny things to tourists in my time."

"I think you're hard on tourists," Harkness said. "They don't mean any harm. They admire places the best way they can."

"Yes, and how long do they stay?" the old man replied. "Do you think you can know a place in a week or a month? Do you think a real place likes the dirt and the noise and the silly talk they bring with them?"

"What do you mean by a real place?" Harkness asked.

"Places have souls just like people. Some have more soul and some have less. And some have none at all. Sometimes a place will creep away altogether, it is so disgusted with the things people are trying to do to it, and will leave a dummy instead, and only a few know the difference. Why,