"Because he
said, 'My poor wife is dyin', and this 'ere precious sov will let me
go right 'ome, and spend the rest of the day with her. Heaven bless
the gentleman!' Oh, he did look so happy!" and Bertie's own eyes
filled with sympathetic tears, though his lips smiled. "I don't think
I shall mind Uncle Gregory's scolding a bit when I think of the poor
cabby's happiness," he added.

"Bertie, a truly good and honest action is like a pebble thrown in a
pool of water: at first it makes a little splash that is not of much
account, but the tiny circle widens and widens, till the whole
surface is influenced. Life is a limitless pool. Do you know where
the circle you started to-day may end? No; neither do I; no human
being knows, but God does. Already it has benefited me a little, that
unhappy clerk who lost the bag a great deal, that poor cabby with his
dying wife a great deal more. Who knows how many more innocent and
perfectly unconscious people may have been influenced by the
accident, if, indeed, there is such a thing as accident in this world
of ours. Just think for one moment what would have been the result if
you had carried that bag to your office, put it in your desk, and
never said a word about it till to-morrow morning, when there would
perhaps have been an advertisement in _The Times_, offering fifty
pounds reward. You might have got the money and been happy, and five
thousand people might have been miserable for life. Such was the
importance of those papers. Now, my carriage is at the door, and I'll
set you down in the City. Tell your uncle the exact truth, and always
act, Bertie Rivers, as you did to-day, honestly and _promptly_: not
because it may benefit yourself, but because it's sure to have a
beneficial influence on every one else. Remember the pebble and the
pool."

Mr. Murray did not speak another word till they reached the top of
Mincing Lane; there the carriage stopped and Bertie got out, but in
spite of all the kind things the old gentleman had said, in spite of
the consciousness of having done quite right from one point of view,
in spite of his real pleasure on the clerk's and the cabby's account,
he felt positively nervous about entering the presence of his uncle,
and actually loitered outside for fully five minutes before venturing
to push back the swing doors, and enter the outer office of Gregory
and Co. He fancied all the clerks were looking at him in surprised
compassion, though in reality not