He did not care to talk with gentlemen, did not Mister; gentlemen of that cloth particularly.  Doubt not that in institutions men wearing such vests as this had had their cleanly will of him on winter nights.  So he asked his question dumbly, with a movement of matted head and eyebrow; and when Mr. Dayne answered in a curious voice, “Yes ... he’s gone,” the last expectancy faded from the rough vague face.  He sidled in, timid and unwilling; laid his burden, speechless, upon a chair.  And then he was shambling furtively out the door again, when the parson’s hand took his shoulder.

“Why are you bringing them back now?  He gave them all to you, didn’t he?”

The visitor spoke for the first time, suddenly, low and whining.

“‘S a Gawd’s truth, Reverend, I never hooked nothin’ off him, an’ I was goin’ to bring ’em back anyways.  Nothin’ wore at all, gents, you can see yourself, cep a time or two mebbe outen that there derby....”

The man himself could see no point in it all except that gents had him in charge; a threatening predicament.  But Mr. Dayne’s gentle suasion prevailed.  Out, gradually, came the little story which he was to tell sometimes in after years, and think about oftener....

Mister was bringing back Doctor’s things because he had never felt right about taking them.

The cutaway coat had been the beginning of it all, it seemed.  The gift of so fine a Sunday coat had bewildered the recipient; he had been on the point of handing it back right there.  However, nature had conquered, then and subsequently; there had accumulated a collection of clothing secretly laid away in a place he had.  The man had kept asking, he said, out of habit—­“more jest to see if he’d give ’em to yer like.”  But he seemed to feel, in a certain dim way, that there was a sort of contest on between him and Doctor.

“The innercent look he had to him, yer might say,” he said, groping for words to answer the high-vested inquisitor.  “Like a child like.  Never scolded yer wunst....  Just up and give yer all yer wanted....”

The blue suit, given yesterday, seemed to have been conceived as a kind of test case.  The man appeared to feel that, once refused, a sort of spell on him would be broken; he would then get out all his store and wear them freely.  So he had told a tall story in the office:  how he was surely going to settle down and be respectable this time, and was obliged to have him a good nice suit fer to git started in....  And Doctor had given him such a funny look that for a minute he thought sure he had him.  But no, the young man had laughed suddenly, as at a joke, and said:  “Well, you sit there, Mister, till I take these off....”  Only not to tell Mrs. Garland.  Took him right back, sure did....

“So then I thinks,” said Mister, the professional quaver returning to his voice, “it’s no better’n thievin’ for to take off an innercent like him, and thinks I, I’ll git the lot of ’em, and give him like a surprise.  ‘S a Gawd’s truth, gents, like I’m tellin’ yer.  Nothin’ at all wore but mebbe that there derby, like I up and tole yer....”