ried away by it.

Another time he preached upon the barren fig-tree, and described the
hopes of the owner as he watched the delicate blossom unfold, and give
promise of such beautiful fruit in autumn. Next day he received a letter
from a botanical member of his congregation who explained to him that
this could hardly have been, inasmuch as the fig produces its fruit first
and blossoms inside the fruit, or so nearly so that no flower is
perceptible to an ordinary observer. This last, however, was an accident
which might have happened to any one but a scientist or an inspired
writer.

The only excuse I can make for him is that he was very young--not yet
four and twenty--and that in mind as in body, like most of those who in
the end come to think for themselves, he was a slow grower. By far the
greater part, moreover, of his education had been an attempt, not so much
to keep him in blinkers as to gouge his eyes out altogether.

But to return to my story. It transpired afterwards that Miss Maitland
had had no intention of giving Ernest in charge when she ran out of Mrs
Jupp's house. She was running away because she was frightened, but
almost the first person whom she ran against had happened to be a
policeman of a serious turn of mind, who wished to gain a reputation for
activity. He stopped her, questioned her, frightened her still more, and
it was he rather than Miss Maitland, who insisted on giving my hero in
charge to himself and another constable.

Towneley was still in Mrs Jupp's house when the policeman came. He had
heard a disturbance, and going down to Ernest's room while Miss Maitland
was out of doors, had found him lying, as it were, stunned at the foot of
the moral precipice over which he had that moment fallen. He saw the
whole thing at a glance, but before he could take action, the policemen
came in and action became impossible.

He asked Ernest who were his friends in London. Ernest at first wanted
not to say, but Towneley soon gave him to understand that he must do as
he was bid, and selected myself from the few whom he had named. "Writes
for the stage, does he?" said Towneley. "Does he write comedy?" Ernest
thought Towneley meant that I ought to write tragedy, and said he was
afraid I wrote burlesque. "Oh, come, come," said Towneley, "that will do
famously. I will go and see him at once." But on second thoughts he
determined to stay with Ernest and go with him to the police court. So
he