Silhouette with Sepia Background

He moved in, with two thousand books, and a bed, and an armchair,
Into a little room under the roof of the great building with the pointed, carved stone doorway.
At eleven o'clock precisely, he would come out of the pointed stone doorway
And cross the street to the Common to feed the squirrels,
Then he would wander on to the Public Garden to gaze at the geometrical flower-beds.
He did this every day, and the orange-vendor at the corner told the time by him; it saved crossing Tremont Street to look up at the clock on Park Street Church.
One morning he did not come, and the traffic policeman missed him.
So did the park policeman, and they talked about it together when they should have been minding their business.
On the second day, they spoke to the orange-vendor, but he knew nothing;
It would have been wiser to ask the pigeons who fly everywhere, but they never thought of that.
On the third day, they consulted the janitor, and, come to think of it, the janitor had not seen him either.
Then the janitor and the park policeman (for the traffic policeman dared not leave his post)
Went upstairs together ever so high, a flight higher than the elevator ran.
They had to break in the door, but that was no great thing,
It was an old door, and rickety.
They found him sitting quietly in his chair, with the book he had been reading fallen on the floor beside him.
He had been dead three days, but only the pigeons knew that.
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