rsistent acquaintance whom I thoroughly and
absolutely disliked, and he knew it, for on more than one occasion I
had good reason for expressing a decided opinion about him. A smile of
gleeful but somewhat mischievous satisfaction spread over his face; he
folded his arms across his breast, he looked up at me and quite held me
with his glittering eye.

I realised his presence, I felt that his eye was upon me, I saw that he
followed every word. He quite unnerved me till I stumbled and tripped.
Then he smiled in his evil way.

I could not get rid of his eyes, and sometimes I half appealed to him
with a pitiful look to take them off me. But it was no use, he still
gazed at me and through me. So thinking of him and looking at him I grew
more and more confused.

The clock fingers would not move fast enough for me. I had elected to
speak on sympathy, brotherhood and mutual help. And this fellow to whom
I had refused help again and again knew my feelings, and made the most
of his opportunity.

But my friend will come and see me when he is once more out of prison.
He will want to discuss my address of that particular Sunday afternoon.
He will quote my words, he will remind me about sympathy and mutual
help, he will hope to leave me rejoicing in the possession of a few
shillings.

But that will be the hour of my triumph; for then I will rejoice in the
contemplation of his disappointment as my door closes upon him. But if I
understand him aright his personal failure will not lead him to despair,
for he will appear again and again and sometimes by deputy, and he will
put others as cunning as himself on my track.

Some time ago I was tormented with a succession of visitors of this
description; my door was hardly free of one when another appeared. They
all told the same tale: "they had been advised to come to me, for I was
kind to men who had been in prison."

They got no practical kindness from me, but rather some wholesome
advice. I found afterwards from a lodging-house habitue that this man
had been taking his revenge by distributing written copies of my name
and address to all the lodging-house inmates, and advising them to call
on me. And I have not the slightest doubt that the rascal watched
them come to my door, enjoyed their disappointment, and gloried in my
irritation.

Yes, I have made the acquaintance of many undesirable fellows, and our
introduction to each other has sometimes been brought about in a very
strang