Well, then, if you will share my stolen goods, you shall know, and I
will tell you as I heard, my memory being good."

"But--" said I.

"Too late you stop me," he added: "you must hear now."

The scene which he went on to sketch was to me strange and curious, nor
could I have thought he could give so perfect a rendering of the
language, and even the accent, of the two speakers. It was a curious
revelation of the man himself, and he seemed to enjoy his power, and yet
to suffer in the telling, without perhaps being fully conscious of it.
The oars dropped from his hands and fell in against the thwarts of the
boat, and he clasped his knees and looked up as he talked, not regarding
at all his single silent listener.

"When this is to be put upon the stage there shall be a garden and two
personages."

"Also," said I, "a jealous listener behind the scenes."

"If you please," he said promptly, and plunged at once into the dialogue
he had overheard:

"'Richard, thee may never again say the words which thee has said to me
to-night. There is, thee knows, that between us which is builded up like
as a wall to keep us the one from the other.'

"'But men and women change, and a wall crumbles, or thee knows it may be
made to. Years have gone away, and the man who stole from thee thy