them. He is giving time, he thinks, for my anger to pass."

He laughed the merriest laugh. The dog looked up eagerly, but dropped
his head again.

If I go on like this, however, I shall have to take another book to
tell the story for which I began the present! In short, I was drawn to
the man as never to another since the friend of my youth went where I
shall go to seek and find him one day--or, more likely, one solemn
night. I was greatly his inferior, but love is a quick divider of
shares: he that gathers much has nothing over, and he that gathers
little has no lack. I soon ceased to think of him as my _new_ friend,
for I seemed to have known him before I was born.

I am going to tell the early part of his history. If only I could tell
it as it deserves to be told! The most interesting story may be so
narrated as that only the eyes of a Shakspere could spy the shine
underneath its dull surface.

He never told me any great portion of the tale of his life
continuously. One thing would suggest another--generally with no
connection in time. I have pieced the parts together myself. He did
indeed set out more than once or twice to give me his history, but
always we got discussing something, and so it was interrupted.

I will not write what I have set in order as if he were himself
narrating: the most modest man in the world would that way be put at a
disadvantage. The constant recurrence of the capital _I_, is apt to
rouse in the mind of the reader, especially if he be himself
egotistic, more or less of irritation at the egotism of the