were only hairy arms that
needed soap, he brought the raiment? Such a pile of them, too, such
royal abundance. A fine black cutaway coat, a handsome pair of "extra"
trousers, shirts, and shoes, and, peeping beneath all, glimpses of a
pretty blue suit quite obviously as good as new.

There stood the wonder, silent and uncouth, in the doorway. Do you doubt
that Sam O'Neill and Mr. Dayne knew, the moment their eyes saw, that
here were the crows come? How they gazed and gazed, and how poor Mister
Garland, ever retiring of habit, squirmed and shifted over an
uneasy heart....

He did not care to talk with gentlemen, did not Mister; gentlemen of
that cloth particularly. Doubt not that in institutions men wearing such
vests as this had had their cleanly will of him on winter nights. So he
asked his question dumbly, with a movement of matted head and eyebrow;
and when Mr. Dayne answered in a curious voice, "Yes ... he's gone," the
last expectancy faded from the rough vague face. He sidled in, timid and
unwilling; laid his burden, speechless, upon a chair. And then he was
shambling furtively out the door again, when the parson's hand took
his shoulder.

"Why are you bringing them back now? He gave them all to you, didn't
he?"

The visitor spoke for the first time, suddenly, low and whining.

"'S a Gawd's truth, Reverend, I never hooked nothin' off him, an' I was
goin' to bring 'em back anyways. Nothin' wore at all, gents, you can see
yourself, cep a time or two mebbe outen that there derby...."

The man himself could see no point in it all except that gents had him
in charge; a threatening predicament. But Mr. Dayne's gentle suasion
prevailed. Out, gradually, came the little story which he was to tell
sometimes in after years, and think about oftener....

Mister was bringing back Doctor's things because he had never felt right
about taking them.

The cutaway coat had been the beginning of it all, it seemed. The gift
of so fine a Sunday coat had bewildered the recipient; he had been on
the point of handing it back right there. However, nature had conquered,
then and subsequently; there had accumulated a collection of clothing
secretly laid away in a place he had. The man had kept asking, he said,
out of habit--"more jest to see if he'd give 'em to yer like." But he
seemed to feel, in a certain dim way, that there was a sort of contest
on between him and Doctor.

"The innercent look he had to him, yer might say," he sai