A month ago my wife and I were walking our dogs on the beach. A stiff breeze was raising whitecaps and Connecticut was plainly visible. There are days when you can hardly see the coast and days when it seems to loom. This was one of the clear days.

A man was walking ahead of us, a tall man wearing a cap and black leather jacket. He was walking slowly. From time to time he would stop and pick something up. Then he would stand still and look at what he had found.

We caught up with him. He had a thin face and high-bridged nose, the kind that is called Roman. His hair was gray . . . I would say he was between 40 and 50. I am inclined not to speak until I am spoken to, so I try to make a point of speaking first and have the reputation of being a sociable, friendly fellow. I said "Hi." He turned his head and looked at me as though he had to think about it. He said "Hello" and went back to looking at whatever he had in his hand.

I walked over and said, 'What did you find?" He didn't look up but continued looking into his palm. Then he held it out. . . a round stone about an inch in diameter, flannel-gray in color. He said, "It's almost perfect." He put the stone in a pocket of his jacket and took out another. This was oval-shaped, reddish brown. He said, "Look at it."

I asked if it was his hobby, collecting stones. "No," he said, "I just collect them." But he was particular. They had to be a certain size, not too big or too small. They had to go through the mouth of a bottle-a wide mouth, of course. And have a good shape and color. There was a variety of shapes and colors on this beach. You wouldn't find stones like these in other places.

No, he wasn't a geologist; finding them just gave him pleasure. He was the manager of a furniture store.

* Louis Simpson's poetry has won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. "The Stone Collector" is part of a forthcoming book about Long Island, where Simpson lives.