w not. An
incident, too slight to advert to, save in its influence upon my fate,
suddenly gave another direction to my destiny; and though, as I have
said, in itself a mere trifle, yet for its singularity, as well as in
its consequences, requires a mention, and shall have--albeit a short
one--a chapter of its own.

The incident I am about to relate has not--at least so far as I
know--ever been made public. Up to three years ago I could have called
a witness to its truth; but I am now the only survivor of those who once
could have corroborated my tale. Still, I am not without hope that
there are some living who, having heard the circumstances before, will
generously exonerate me from any imputation of being the inventor.

This preface may excite in my reader the false expectation of something
deeply interesting; and I at once and most explicitly own that I have
none such in store for him. It is, I repeat for the third time, an
incident only curious from those engaged in it, and only claiming a
mention in such a history as mine.

CHAPTER XXXIX. A STRANGE INCIDENT TO BE A TRUE ONE

It was on one of the coldest of a cold December days, when a dry north
wind, with a blackish sky, portended the approach of a heavy snow-storm,
that I was standing at my usual post, with little to occupy me, for the
weather for some time previous had been dry and frosty. Habit, and the
security that none could recognize me, had at length inured me to my
condition; and I was beginning to feel the same indifference about my
station that I felt as to my future.

Pride may, in reality, have had much to say to this, for I was proud to
think that of the thousands who flowed past me each day I could claim
equality with a large share, and perhaps more than equality with many.
This pride, too, was somehow fostered by a sense of hope which I could
have scarcely credited; for there constantly occurred to me the thought
that one day or other I should be able to say: "Yes, my Lord Duke, I
have known you these twenty years. I remember having swept the crossing
for you in the autumn after the Peace. Ay, ay, Right Honorable Sir, I
owe you my gratitude, if only for this that you never passed me without
saying, 'Good day, Jack!'"

Was it not strange, too, how fondly I clung to, what importance I
attached to, these little passing recognitions; they seemed to me the
last remaining ties that bound me to my fellow-men, and that to deny
them to me was to