nd to it now; and I went on and on.

As I got nearer and nearer to the provision shop, I had the
half-conscious feeling of approaching a danger, but I determined to
stick to my purpose; I would give myself up. I ran quickly up the
steps. At the door I met a little girl who was carrying a cup in her
hands, and I slipped past her and opened the door. The shop boy and I
stand face to face alone for the second time.

"Well!" he exclaims; "fearfully bad weather now, isn't it?" What did
this going round the bush signify? Why didn't he seize me at once? I
got furious, and cried:

"Oh, I haven't come to prate about the weather."

This violent preliminary takes him aback; his little huckster brain
fails him. It has never even occurred to him that I have cheated him of
five shillings.

"Don't you know, then, that I have swindled you?" I query impatiently,
and I breathe quickly with the excitement; I tremble and am ready to
use force if he doesn't come to the point.

But the poor man has no misgivings.

Well, bless my soul, what stupid creatures one has to mix with in this
world! I abuse him, explain to him every detail as to how it had all
happened, show him where the fact was accomplished, where the money had
lain; how I had gathered it up in my hand and closed my fingers over
it--and he takes it all in and does nothing. He shifts uneasily from
one foot to the other, listens for footsteps in the next room, make
signs to hush me, to try and make me speak lower, and says at last:

"It was a mean enough thing of you to do!"

"No; hold on," I explained in my desire to contradict him--to aggravate
him. It wasn't quite so mean as he imagined it to be, in his huckster
head. Naturally, I didn't keep the money; that could never have entered
my head. I, for my part, scorned to derive any benefit from it--that
was opposed to my thoroughly honest nature.

"What did you do with it, then?"

"I gave it away to a poor old woman--every farthing of it." He must
understand that that was the sort of person I was; I didn't forget the
poor so....

He stands and thinks over this a while, becomes manifestly very dubious
as to how far I am an honest man or not. At last he says:

"Oughtn't you rather to have brought it back again?"

"Now, listen here," I reply; "I didn't want to get you into trouble in
any way; but that is the thanks one gets for being generous. Here I
stand and explain the whole thing to you, and you simply, instead of