stupefied, paralyzed; it was impossible for anybody to do anything, or
even try. Nothing could go on in that strange atmosphere. Howells
mournfully, and without words, hitched himself to Bishop and me and
supported us out of the room. It was very kind--he was most generous.
He towed us tottering away into same room in that building, and we sat
down there. I don't know what my remark was now, but I know the nature
of it. It was the kind of remark you make when you know that nothing in
the world can help your case. But Howells was honest--he had to say the
heart-breaking things he did say: that there was no help for this
calamity, this shipwreck, this cataclysm; that this was the most
disastrous thing that had ever happened in anybody's history--and then he
added, "That is, for you--and consider what you have done for Bishop. It
is bad enough in your case, you deserve, to suffer. You have committed
this crime, and you deserve to have all you are going to get. But here
is an innocent man. Bishop had never done you any harm, and see what you
have done to him. He can never hold his head up again. The world can
never look upon Bishop as being a live person. He is a corpse."

That is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which
pretty nearly killed me with shame during that first year or two whenever
it forced its way into my mind.

Now then, I take that speech up and examine it. As I said, it arrived
this morning, from Boston. I have read it twice, and unless I am an
idiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last.
It is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with
humor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it
anywhere. What could have been the matter with that house? It is
amazing, it is incredible, that they didn't shout with laughter, and
those deities the loudest of them all. Could the fault have been with