"So the Voice gave a funny little laugh almost like a woman's
hysterics, and I stopped crying right off short, and the Voice said,
just a little bit mockingly: 'But the only perfectly true story that I
know--the only story that's never--never been told to anybody before
is the story of my life.' 'Very well, then,' I said, 'tell me that! Of
course I was planning to live to be very old and learn a little about
a great many things; but as long as apparently I'm not going to live
to even reach my twenty-ninth birthday--to-morrow--you don't know how
unutterably it would comfort me to think that at least I knew
_everything_ about some one thing!'

"And then the Voice choked again, just a little bit, and said:
'Well--here goes, then. Once upon a time--but first, can you move your
right hand? Turn it just a little bit more this way. There! Cuddle it
down! Now, you see, I've made a little home for it in mine. Ouch!
Don't press down too hard! I think my wrist is broken. All ready,
then? You won't cry another cry? Promise? All right then. Here goes.
Once upon a time--'

"Never mind about the story," said the Youngish Girl tersely. "It
began about the first thing in all his life that he remembered
seeing--something funny about a grandmother's brown wig hung over the
edge of a white piazza railing--and he told me his name and address,
and all about his people, and all about his business, and what banks
his money was in, and something about some land down in the Panhandle,
and all the bad things that he'd ever done in his life, and all the
good things, that he wished there'd been more of, and all the things
that no one would dream of telling you if he ever, ever expected to
see Daylight again--things so intimate--things so--