ld see that you did it.

He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to escort
the old ladies to the station, and who would never leave them until he
had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was who would play
"wild beasts" with the children, and frighten them into fits that would
last all night.

So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never visited
poor sick persons without taking with him in his pocket some little
delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them worse. He
arranged yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely at his own
expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent agonies as ingratitude.

He loved to manage a wedding. Once he planned matters so that the bride
arrived at the altar three-quarters of an hour before the groom, which
led to unpleasantness upon a day that should have been filled only with
joy, and once he forgot the clergyman. But he was always ready to admit
when he made a mistake.

At funerals, also, he was to the fore, pointing out to the grief-stricken
relatives how much better it was for all concerned that the corpse was
dead, and expressing a pious hope that they would soon join it.

The chiefest delight of his life, however, was to be mixed up in other
people's domestic quarrels. No domestic quarrel for miles round was
complete without him. He generally came in as mediator, and finished as
leading witness for the appellant.

As a journalist or politician his wonderful grasp of other people's
business would have won for him esteem. The error he made was working it
out in practice.

THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS

The first time we met, to speak, he was sitting with his back against a
pollard willow, smoking a clay pipe. He smoked it very slowly, but very
conscientiously. After each whiff he removed the pipe from his mouth and
fanned away the smoke with his cap.

"Feeling bad?" I asked from behind a tree, at the same time making ready
for a run, big boys' answers to small boys' impertinences being usually
of the nature of things best avoided.

To my surprise and relief--for at second glance I perceived I had under-
estimated the length of his legs--he appeared to regard the question as a
natural and proper one, replying with unaffected candour, "Not yet."

My desire became to comfort him--a sentiment I think he understood and
was grateful for. Advancing into the open, I sat down over against him,
and