ich he had
spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been
well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence), perhaps
educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight
incongruity in such-wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies
of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force,
even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was
so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young
(if I could believe it, sitting in that hut; he scarcely could), a
student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run
wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He
had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay
upon it. It was far too late to make another.

All that I have here condensed, he said in a quiet manner, with his grave
dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word
"Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth:
as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but
what I found him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell,
and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once, he had to stand
without the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some
verbal communication to the driver. In the discharge of his duties I
observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his
discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was
done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to
be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was
speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face
towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut
(which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out
towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those
occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him
which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far
asunder.

Said I when I rose to leave him: "You almost make me think that I have
met with a contented man."

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on).

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which he
had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."

He would have recalled the