I can see him now, fetching the untidy portfolio and turning over the pages, adroitly enough, as though anxious to show how immaterial was the loss of a left arm.

That night I listened to the first half of the third volume of 'Lynwood's Heritage,' and couldn't help reflecting that its author seemed to thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this deadly-lively place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life.
"How do you manage to write one-handed ?" I asked.
And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-weight on the left-hand corner of the sheet of foolscap, and wrote that comical first paragraph of the eighth chapter over which we have all laughed.

I suppose few readers guessed the author's state of mind when he wrote it.

I looked over his shoulder to see what he had written, and couldn't help laughing aloud--I verily believe that it was his way of turning off attention from his arm, and leading me safely from the region of awkward questions.
"By-the-by," I exclaimed, "your writing of garden-parties reminds me.

I went to one at Campden Hill the other day, and had the good fortune to meet Miss Freda Merrifield." How his face lighted up, poor fellow, and what a flood of questions he poured out.