don't be angry at
my boldness in telling you so freely my thoughts. You may, perhaps, said
he, be least mistaken, when you think of your bad sign. God forbid! said
I.

So I took out my papers; and said, Here, sir, they are. But if you
please to return them, without breaking the seal, it will be very
generous: and I will take it for a great favour, and a good omen.

He broke the seal instantly, and opened them: So much for your omen!
replied he. I am sorry for it, said I, very seriously; and was walking
away. Whither now? said he. I was going in, sir, that you might have
time to read them, if you thought fit. He put them into his pocket, and
said, You have more than these. Yes, sir: but all they contain, you know
as well as I.--But I don't know, said he, the light you put things in;
and so give them me, if you have not a mind to be searched.

Sir, said I, I can't stay, if you won't forbear that ugly world.--Give
me then no reason for it. Where are the other papers? Why, then, unkind
sir, if it must be so, here they are. And so I gave him, out of
my pocket, the second parcel, sealed up, as the former, with this
superscription; From the naughty articles, down, through sad attempts,
to Thursday the 42d day of my imprisonment. This is last Thursday, is
it? Yes, sir; but now you will see what I write, I will find some other
way to employ my time: for how can I write with any face, what must be
for your perusal, and not for those I intended to read my melancholy
stories?

Yes, said he, I would have you continue your penmanship by all means;
and, I assure you, in the mind I am in, I will not ask you for any after
these; except any thing very extraordinary occurs. And I have another
thing to tell you, added he, that if you send for those from your
father, and let me read them, I may, very probably, give them all back
again to you. And so I desire you will do it.

This a little encourages me to continue my scribbling; but, for fear of
the worst, I will, when they come to any bulk, contrive some way to
hide them, if I can, that I may protest I have them not about me, which,
before, I could not say of a truth; and that made him so resolutely bent
to try to find them upon me; for which I might have suffered frightful
indecencies.

He led me, then, to the side of the pond; and sitting down on the slope,
made me sit by him. Come, said he, this being the scene of part of your
project, and where you so artfully threw in some of