He had a sense of humour, and devoted it to seeing all the fun there was in “cranks,” and in extravagance of every kind. Never was he more amused than when he saw a person really give himself to anything; he would sit, sometimes with his hat on and sometimes with it off, watching with a quiet smile to see the fellow bump; and the bigger the bump was, the funnier he found it! But for such as smiled at careful men he had a feeling that you could not take them seriously; it was their little joke, and not a very good one; and especially he wondered how people could be found foolish enough to place these persons in an Institution where care was of the essence of the atmosphere. Confident, however, that their want of care would soon undo them, he did not trouble much. Phrases such as “There is no middle policy” sometimes carried him away for quite five minutes; but he invariably came back in time to find there was. It had, in fact, long been a fixed and firm belief with him that he could make omelettes without breaking eggs, and though he clearly made no omelettes, on the other hand he broke no eggs. Nor did he ever fracture his belief that he was just about to make an omelette. And after all, an omelette, even if you made it, what did it amount to? There it was! You ate it, and had to make another! Better far to fix an omelette in your mind, and keep it there unmade. But discussion on the omelette’s composition he was always ready to encourage; and, sitting with his eye cocked at the ingredients, he would talk them over very carefully, and now and then break off a sprig of parsley, so that the omelette really did advance--but not too fast. Sometimes he was even known to contemplate the omelette all the night, but this he only did because he was so very much afraid that if he left it somebody would cook the thing; and he would go home in the early morning to his wife, complaining rather bitterly that with a little care all this excessive cooking in the House might be avoided. Take him for all in all, he was not original in mind, and yet he was no flunkey, serving mortal masters; he served a nobler one than they--the great god Opportunity. But it was not safe to tell him this, for though there was no reason in the world why he should dislike its being known that he acted in accordance with his nature, somehow he did not like it. This was, no doubt, an instance of his care.