respective chairs, "I'd come round and make your head like it!" I take
it, she meant like the boy's. She also added observations upon our
chief's personal appearance, that were distinctly in bad taste. She was
not a nice woman by any means.

Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened,
she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had had
experience of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I have
heard him say:

"If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should
refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I
should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the
other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by
means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket
and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply."

He squared the matter with the florid-faced lady for a five-pound note,
which must have represented a month's profits on the paper; and she
departed, taking her damaged offspring with her. After she was gone, our
chief spoke kindly to me. He said:

"Don't think I am blaming you in the least; it is not your fault, it is
Fate. Keep to moral advice and criticism--there you are distinctly good;
but don't try your hand any more on 'Useful Information.' As I have
said, it is not your fault. Your information is correct enough--there is
nothing to be said against that; it simply is that you are not lucky with
it."

I would that I had followed his advice always; I would have saved myself