here, I suppose?"

"That I do," Bob said, cordially.

Mr. Medlin nodded.

"Not so bad as it looks," he said, and then walked on again, in
silence.

Presently there was a break in the houses. They were getting beyond
the confines of business London.

"Do you see this little garden?" Mr. Medlin asked, suddenly, in a
tone so unlike that in which he had before spoken that Bob quite
started.

The lad looked at the little patch of ground, with some stunted
shrubs, but could see nothing remarkable in it.

"Yes, I see it, sir," he said.

"That, Bob," Mr. Medlin went on, "--for I suppose you are called
Bob--marks the end of all things."

Bob opened his eyes in astonishment, and again examined the little
garden.

"It marks, Bob, the delimitation between London and country,
between slavery and freedom. Here, every morning, I leave myself
behind; here, every evening, I recover myself--or, at least, a
considerable portion of myself--at a further mark, half a mile on,
I am completely restored.

"I suppose you used to find just the same thing, at the door of the
schoolroom?"

"A good deal, sir," Bob said, in a much brighter tone than he had
used, since he said goodbye to the fellows at Tulloch's.

"I am glad you feel like that. I expect you will get like that, as
to the city, in time; but mind, lad, you must always find yourself
again. You stick to that. You make a mark somewhere, leave yourself
behind in the morning, and pick yourself up again when you come
back. It is a bad thing for those who forget to do that. They might
as well hang themselves--better.

"In there," and he jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, "we are
all machines, you know. It isn't us, not a bit of it. There is just
the flesh, the muscle, the bones, and a frozen bit of our brains.
The rest of us is left behind. If, as we come out, we forget to
pick it up, we lose ourselves altogether, before long; and then
there we are, machines to the end of our lives. You remember that,
Bob. Keep it always in mind."

"It is a pity that my uncle didn't get the same advice, forty years
ago, Mr. Medlin."

"It is a pity my employer did not marry. It is a pity my employer
lives in that dull house, in that dull lane, all by himself," Mr.
Medlin said, angrily.

"But he has not got rid of himself, altogether. He is a good deal
frozen up; but he thaws out, sometimes. What a man he would be, if
he would but live out somewhere, and pick himself up regularly,