ll of the two? And
was it helped (insensibly to myself) by his advantages of personal
appearance? I can only confess that his apology presented a picture of
misery to my mind, which shook my resolution to refuse him. His ready
penetration discovered this change in his favour: he at once took
advantage of it. "Five minutes of your time is all I ask for," he said.
"Won't you indulge a man who sees his fellow-creatures all talking
happily round him, and feels dead and buried among them?"

The very exaggeration of his language had its effect on my mind. It
revealed to me the horrible isolation among humanity of the deaf, as I
had never understood it yet. Discretion is, I am sorry to say, not one of
the strong points in my character. I committed one more among the many
foolish actions of my life; I signed to the stranger to lead the way back
to the mill.

CHAPTER IV

HE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

Giles Toller's miserly nature had offered to his lodger shelter from wind
and rain, and the furniture absolutely necessary to make a bedroom
habitable--and nothing more. There was no carpet on the floor, no paper
on the walls, no ceiling to hide the rafters of the roof. The chair that
I sat on was the one chair in the room; the man whose guest I had rashly
consented to be found a seat on his bed. Upon his table I saw pens and
pencils, paper and ink, and a battered brass candlestick with a common
tallow candle in it. His changes of clothing were flung on the bed; his
money was left on the unpainted wooden chimney-piece; his wretched little
morsel of looking-glass (propped up near the money) had been turned with
its face to the wall. He perceived that the odd position of this last
object had attracted my notice.

"Vanity and I have parted company," he explained; "I shrink from myself
when I look at myself now. The ugliest man living--if he has got his
hearing--is a more agreeable man in society than I am. Does this wretched
place disgust you?"

He pushed a pencil and some sheets of writing-paper across the table to
me. I wrote my reply: "The place makes me sorry for you."

He shook his head. "Your sympathy is thrown away on me. A man who has
lost his social relations with his fellow-creatures doesn't care how he
lodges or where he lives. When he has found solitude, he has found all he
wants for the rest of his days. Shall we introduce ourselves? It won't be
easy for me to set the example."

I used the pencil again: "Why not?"