it over.
I'm ready to. I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a relief to get out of
this rotten life. I'm all on edge. I could jump out of that window as
easily as not. But it wasn't the girl's fault. She's a poor little
waif of a thing. You must look after her and keep me from seeing her
again, but she's not bad--only--only--Oh, my God! my God!"

He covered his face with his hands and rocked himself about, so that
Steptoe was obliged to go on brushing till his master calmed himself.

"Do you think, sir," he said then, "that this is the 'at to go with
this 'ere suit? I think as the brown one would be a lot chicker--tone
in with the sort of fawn stripe in the blue like, and ketch the note
in your tie." He added, while diving into the closet in search of the
brown hat and bringing it out, "There's one thing I could say right
now, Mr. Rash, and I think it might 'elp."

"What is it?"

"Do you remember the time when you 'urt your leg 'unting down in Long
Island?"

"Yes; what about it?"

"You was all for not payin' it no attention and for 'oppin' about as
if you 'adn't 'urt it at all. A terr'ble fuss you myde when the doctor
said as you was to keep still. Anybody 'ud 'ave thought 'e'd bordered
a hamputation. And yet it was keepin' still what got you out o' the
trouble, now wasn't it?"

"Well?"

"Well, now you're in a worse trouble still it might do the syme again.
I'm a great believer in keepin' still, I am."

Allerton was off again. "How in thunder am I to keep still when----?"

"I'll tell you one wye, sir. Don't talk. Don't _do_ nothink. Don't
beat your 'ead against the wall. Be quiet. Tyke it natural. You've
done this thing. Well, you 'aven't committed a murder. You 'aven't
even done a wrong to the young lydy to whom you was engyged. By what I
understand she'd jilted you, and you was free to marry any one you
took a mind to."

"Nominally, perhaps, but----"

"If you're nominally free, sir, you're free, by what I can understand;
and if you've gone and done a foolish thing it ain't no one's business
but your own."

"Yes, but I can't stand it!"

"O' course you can't stand it, sir, but it's because you can't stand
it that I'm arskin' of you to keep just as quiet as you can. Mistykes
in our life is often like the twists we'll give to our bodies. They'll
ache most awful, but let nyture alone and she'll tyke care of 'em.
It's jest so with our mistykes. Let life alone and she'll put 'em
stryght for us, nine times out