Things have happened to me that would make you stare, if I could bring myself to tell them.

Ah yes, I have lived in stirring times.

Fifty years ago men and women knew their minds; and a dog could eat his dinner without a damask napkin." Master Popplewell, who was of a good round form, and tucked his heels over one another as he walked (which indicates a pleasant self-esteem), now lit his long pipe and marched ahead, carefully gazing to the front and far away; so that the young folk might have free boot and free hand behind him.

That they should have flutters of loving-kindness, and crafty little breaths of whispering, and extraordinary gifts of just looking at each other in time not to be looked at again, as well as a strange sort of in and out of feeling, as if they were patterned with the same zigzag--as the famous Herefordshire graft is made--and above all the rest, that they should desire to have no one in the world to look at them, was to be expected by a clever old codger, a tanner who had realized a competence, and eaten many "tanner's pies." The which is a good thing; and so much the better because it costs nothing save the crust and the coal.

But instead of any pretty little goings on such as this worthy man made room for, to tell the stupid truth, this lad and lass came down the long walk as far apart and as independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier.