So the subject was changed in deference to the children’s presence, and we went on talking about other things.  But as soon as the young people were out of the way, the lady came warmly back to the matter and said, “I have made it the rule of my life to never tell a lie; and I have never departed from it in a single instance.”  I said, “I don’t mean the least harm or disrespect, but really you have been lying like smoke ever since I’ve been sitting here.  It has caused me a good deal of pain, because I am not used to it.”  She required of me an instance—­just a single instance.  So I said: 

“Well, here is the unfilled duplicate of the blank which the Oakland hospital people sent to you by the hand of the sick-nurse when she came here to nurse your little nephew through his dangerous illness.  This blank asks all manner of questions as to the conduct of that sick-nurse:  ’Did she ever sleep on her watch?  Did she ever forget to give the medicine?’ and so forth and so on.  You are warned to be very careful and explicit in your answers, for the welfare of the service requires that the nurses be promptly fined or otherwise punished for derelictions.  You told me you were perfectly delighted with that nurse—­that she had a thousand perfections and only one fault:  you found you never could depend on her wrapping Johnny up half sufficiently while he waited in a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed.  You filled up the duplicate of this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the hand of the nurse.  How did you answer this question—­’Was the nurse at any time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the patient’s taking cold?’ Come—­everything is decided by a bet here in California:  ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered that question.”  She said, “I didn’t; I left it blank!” “Just so—­you have told a silent lie; you have left it to be inferred that you had no fault to find in that matter.”  She said, “Oh, was that a lie?  And how could I mention her one single fault, and she so good?—­it would have been cruel.”  I said, “One ought always to lie when one can do good by it; your impulse was right, but, your judgment was crude; this comes of unintelligent practice.  Now observe the result of this inexpert deflection of yours.  You know Mr. Jones’s Willie is lying very low with scarlet fever; well, your recommendation was so enthusiastic that that girl is there nursing him, and the worn-out family have all been trustingly sound asleep for the last fourteen hours, leaving their darling with full confidence in those fatal hands, because you, like young George Washington, have a reputa—­ However, if you are not going to have anything to do, I will come around to-morrow and we’ll attend the funeral together, for, of course, you’ll naturally feel a peculiar interest in Willie’s case—­as personal a one, in fact, as the undertaker.”

But that was all lost.  Before I was half-way through she was in a carriage and making thirty miles an hour toward the Jones mansion to save what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly nurse.  All of which was unnecessary, as Willie wasn’t sick; I had been lying myself.  But that same day, all the same, she sent a line to the hospital which filled up the neglected blank, and stated the facts, too, in the squarest possible manner.