way of spice. Read what you've been writin', maybe it'll do for one of Sykes' sermons. We'll have your book to start with, and the title of it shall be, The novel that never was written.'"
"Life is fragmentary"—
"Just as true as the Bible. All cut up into washin' and bakin', brewin' and mendin', and nothin' but the little odd bits and ends left to ourselves. Sometimes a spare minute to take a pinch o' snuff."
"Here and there a thought is struck off, clearly illustrating to our own minds the idea we would wish to present, but meeting the counter current of another soul"—
"That's just it exactly. When I lived at Syke's I went up garret one night after somethin' in the dark and was just thinkin' how nice it was not to have to light myself round as other folks do, when I stepped into a coal-hod on the stair, and down I come, coal and all, and such a racket you never did hear. It was right over the front stairs, and there was company in the parlor, and they come runnin' out, and one on'em said, 'The devil's in the house!' 'No he ain't,' says I, 'nothin' but his image. I stepped into a coal hod and fell down, that's what's the matter.' Sykes stretched up his long neck, and says he, 'did it hurt the hod?' When I was thinkin' what if I had broke my neck and its loss to the world, he was thinkin' how much the hod cost, as if that was the most consequence. Go on."
"A careless word or deed may inflict a wound, on some sensitive soul that time can never heal, and a sympathizing look may lighten the sorrow of the
