Stone Giant

Just came across a great passage from Blaylock's "The Stone Giant":

[He] would stroll in among among them, bowing. He'd pause to light his pipe and to puff on it for a moment with the air of a man who has studied things out and wants to phrase things particularly carefully in order not to be misunderstood by a precocious, but, perhaps, slightly scatterbrained audience."

The man has the touch, no doubt about it.