me: and I remembered you.
I had still preserved the address you gave me; I went straight to the
house. Your friend, on naming you, received me kindly, and
without question placed food before me--pressed on me clothing and
money--procured me a passport--gave me your address--and now I am
beneath your roof. Gawtrey, I know nothing yet of the world but the dark
side of it. I know not what to deem you--but as you alone have been
kind to me, so it is to your kindness rather than your aid, that I
now cling--your kind words and kind looks-yet--" he stopped short, and
breathed hard.

"Yet you would know more of me. Faith, my boy, I cannot tell you more at
this moment. I believe, to speak fairly, I don't live exactly within the
pale of the law. But I'm not a villain! I never plundered my friend and
called it play!--I never murdered my friend and called it honour!--I
never seduced my friend's wife and called it gallantry!" As Gawtrey
said this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth,
paused and resumed more gaily: "I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I
am not what you seem to suppose--not exactly a swindler, certainly not a
robber! But, as I before told you, I am a charlatan, so is every man who
strives to be richer or greater than he is.

"I, too, want kindness as much as you do. My bread and my cup are at
your service. I will try and keep you unsullied, even by the clean
dirt that now and then sticks to me. On the other hand, youth, my young
friend, has no right to play the censor; and you must take me as you
take the world, without being over-scrupulous and dainty. My present
vocation pays well; in fact, I am beginning to lay by. My real name
and past life are thoroughly unknown, and as yet unsuspected, in this
quartier; for though I have seen much of Paris, my career hitherto has
passed in other parts of the city;--and for the rest, own that I am well
disguised! What a benevolent air this bald forehead gives me--eh? True,"
added Gawtrey, somewhat more seriously, "if I saw how you could support
yourself in a broader path of life than that in which I pick out my own
way, I might say to you, as a gay man of fashion might say to some sober
stripling--nay, as many a dissolute father says (or ought to say) to his
son, 'It is no reason you should be a sinner, because I am not a saint.'
In a word, if you were well off in a respectable profession, you might
have safer acquaintances than myself. But, as it is,