But while he never boasted of his past deeds, he never apologized for them, and evidently would have been quite as incapable of understanding that they needed an apology as he would have been incapable of being guilty of mere vulgar boastfulness.

He did not often allude to his past career at all.

When he did, he recited its incidents perfectly naturally and simply, as events, without any reference to or regard for their ethical significance.

It was this quality which made him at times a specially pleasant companion, and always an agreeable narrator.

The point of his story, or what seemed to him the point, was rarely that which struck me.