e, he still sat opposite the
pond with his head bowed down into his arms. Seven o'clock passed. At
nine o'clock a bell was rung and every one had to leave. He went also.
He stood outside the gates looking on this side and on that. Which
way would he go? All roads were alike to him, so he turned at last and
walked somewhere. He did not go home that night. He never went home
again. He never was heard of again anywhere in the wide world."

The voice ceased speaking and silence swung down again upon the little
cell. The Philosopher had been listening intently to this story, and
after a few minutes he spoke "When you go up this road there is a turn
to the left and all the path along is bordered with trees--there are
birds in the trees, Glory be to God! There is only one house on that
road, and the woman in it gave us milk to drink. She has but one son, a
good boy, and she said the other children were dead; she was speaking of
a husband who went away and left her--'Why should he have been afraid to
come home?' said she--'sure, I loved him.'"

After a little interval the voice spoke again "I don't know what became
of the man I was speaking of. I am a thief, and I'm well known to the
police everywhere. I don't think that man would get a welcome at the
house up here, for why should he?"

Another, a different, querulous kind of voice came from the silence "If
I knew a place where there was a welcome I'd go there as quickly as I
could, but I don't know a place and I never will, for what good would
a man of my age be to any person? I am a thief also. The first thing I
stole was a hen out of a little yard. I roasted it in a ditch and ate
it, and then I stole another one and ate it, and after that I stole
everything I could lay my hands on. I suppose I will steal as long as I
live, and I'll die in a ditch at the heel of the hunt. There was a time,
not long ago, and if any one had told me then that I would rob, even
for hunger, I'd have been insulted: but what does it matter now? And
the reason I am a thief is because I got old without noticing it.
Other people noticed it, but I did not. I suppose age comes on one so
gradually that it is seldom observed. If there are wrinkles on one's
face we do not remember when they were not there: we put down all kind
of little infirmities to sedentary living, and you will see plenty of
young people bald. If a man has no occasion to tell any one his age,
and if he never thinks of it himself, he w