overtake him? and so I 'll just help him through it.'"

"And that was your calculation?"

"That was my calculation."

"How sorry I feel to wound the marvellous gift you seem to possess of
interpreting character. I am really shocked to think that for this time,
at least, your acuteness is at fault."

"Which means that you 'll not do it."

I smiled a benign assent.

He looked at me for a minute or more with a sort of blank incredulity,
and then, crossing his arms on his breast, moved slowly down the walk
without speaking.

I cannot say how I detested this man; he had offended me in the very
sorest part of all my nature; he had wounded the nicest susceptibility I
possessed; of the pleasant fancies wherewith I loved to clothe myself he
would not leave me enough to cover my nakedness; and yet, now that I
had resented his cool impertinence, I hated myself far more than I hated
him. Dignity and sarcasm, forsooth! What a fine opportunity to display
them, truly! The man might be rude and underbred; he _was_ rude and
underbred! and was that any justification for _my_ conduct towards
him? Why had I not had the candor to say, "Here 's all I possess in the
world; you see yourself that I cannot lend you ten pounds." How I wished
I had said that, and how I wished, even more ardently still, that I had
never met him, never interchanged speech with him!

"And why is it that I am offended with him,--simply because he has
discovered that I am Potts?" Now, these reflections were all the more
bitter, since it was only twenty-four hours before that I had resolved
to throw off delusion either of myself or others; that I would take my
place in the ranks, and fight out my battle of life a mere soldier. For
this it was that I made companionship with Vaterehen, walking the high
road with that poor old man of motley, and actually speculating--in a
sort of artistic way--whether I should not make love to Tintefleck! And
if I were sincere in all this, how should I feel wounded by the honest
candor of that plain-spoken fellow. He wanted a favor at my hands, he
owned this; and yet, instead of approaching me with flattery, he at once
assails the very stronghold of my self-esteem, and says, "No humbug,
Potts; at least none with _me!_" He opens acquaintance with me on that
masonic principle by which the brotherhood of Poverty is maintained
throughout all lands and all peoples, and whose great maxim is, "He who
lends to the poor man borrows from th