Once or twice there have been among them people whom I have known.  As these pass me I appear to have the power of looking into their hearts, and there I read strange things.  Sometimes they are beautiful things and sometimes ugly things.  Thus I have learned that those I thought bad were really good in the main, for who can claim to be quite good?  And on the other hand that those I believed to be as honest as the day—­well, had their faults.

To take an example which I quote because it is so absurd.  The rooms I live in were owned by a prim old woman who for more than twenty years was my landlady.  She and I were great friends, indeed she tended me like a mother, and when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps few mothers would have done.  Yet while I was watching on the Road suddenly she came by, and with horror I saw that during all those years she had been robbing me, taking, I am sorry to say, many things, in money, trinkets, and food.  Often I had discussed with her where these articles could possibly have gone, till finally suspicion settled upon the man who cleaned the windows.  Yes, and worst of all, he was prosecuted, and I gave evidence against him, or rather strengthened her evidence, on faith of which the magistrate sent him to prison for a month.

“Oh!  Mrs Smithers,” I said to her, “how could you do it, Mrs. Smithers?”

She stopped and looked about her terrified, so that my heart smote me and I added in haste, “Don’t be frightened, Mrs. Smithers; I forgive you.”

“I can’t see you, sir,” she exclaimed, or so I dreamed, “but there!  I always knew you would.”

“Yes, Mrs. Smithers,” I replied; “but how about the window-cleaner who went to jail and lost his situation?”

Then she passed on or was drawn away without making any answer.

Now comes the odd part of the story.  When I woke up on the following morning in my rooms, it was to be informed by the frightened maid-of-all-work that Mrs. Smithers had been found dead in her bed.  Moreover, a few days later I learned from a lawyer that she had made a will leaving me everything she possessed, including the lease of her house and nearly L1000, for she had been a saving old person during all her long life.

Well, I sought out that window-cleaner and compensated him handsomely, saying that I had found I was mistaken in the evidence I gave against him.  The rest of the property I kept, and I hope that it was not wrong of me to do so.  It will be remembered that some of it was already my own, temporarily diverted into another channel, and for the rest I have so many to help.  To be frank I do not spend much upon myself.

THE HARE

Now I have done with myself, or rather with my own insignificant present history, and come to that of the Hare.  It impressed me a good deal at the time, which is not long ago, so much indeed that I communicated the facts to Jorsen.  He ordered me to publish them, and what Jorsen orders must be done.  I don’t know why this should be, but it is so.  He has authority of a sort that I am unable to define.