Perhaps, if we are sorry, it proves that we
needn't be. Let's judge each other. I've told you what my sin against
Barker is, and I know yours in general terms. It's a fearful thing to
be the cause of a human soul's presence in Boston; but what did you do
to bring it about? Who is Barker? Where did he come from? What was his
previous condition of servitude? He puzzles me a good deal."
"Oh, I'll tell you," said Sewell; and he gave his personal chapter
in Lemuel's history.
Evans interrupted him at one point. "And what became of the poem he
brought down with him?"
"It was stolen out of his pocket, one night when he slept in the
common."
"Ah, then he can't offer it to me! And he seems very far from
writing any more. I can still keep his acquaintance. Go on."
Sewell told, in amusing detail, of the Wayfarer's Lodge, where he
had found Barker after supposing he had gone home. Evans seemed more
interested in the place than in the minister's meeting with Lemuel
there, which Sewell fancied he had painted rather well, describing
Lemuel's severity and his own anxiety.
"There!" said the editor. "There you have it--a practical
illustration! Our civilisation has had to come to it!"
"Come to what?"
"Complicity."
Sewell made an impatient gesture.
"Don't sacrifice the consideration of a great principle," cried
Evans, "to the petty effect of a good story on an appreciative
listener.
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