We had reached Broadway by this time and were crossing the street
opposite Trinity Churchyard.
"Come over here with me," he cried, "and let us look in through
the iron railings. The study of the dead is often more profitable
than knowledge of the living. Ah, the gate is open! It is not
often I am here at this time, and on a foggy afternoon. What a
noble charity, my boy, is a fog--it hides such a multitude of
sins--bad architecture for one," and he laughed softly.
I always let Peter run on--in fact I always encourage him to run
on. No one I know talks quite in the same way; many with a larger
experience of life are more profound, but none have the personal
note which characterizes the old fellow's discussions.
"And how do you suppose these by-gones feel about what is going on
around them?" he rattled on, tapping the wet slab of a tomb with
the end of his umbrella. "And not only these sturdy patriots who
lie here, but the queer old ghosts who live in the steeple?" he
added, waving his hand upward to the slender spire, its cross lost
in the fog.
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