or , when , for example , he would happen to meet , by the riverside , a vacationing family , who spoke eagerly of their everyday livesof neighbors and relatives and of the scandalous affairs of some local barberhis face remained bright and attentive , but his eyes might drift elsewhere , perplexed at some other matter , or possibly even at some binding fundament which related both to himself and this family and which might account for their mutually pressing need to exchange niceties masqueraded as mundane , and often unavoidably vicious , gossip .