If I go on like this, however, I shall have to take another book to tell the story for which I began the present! In short, I was drawn to the man as never to another since the friend of my youth went where I shall go to seek and find him one day--or, more likely, one solemn night. I was greatly his inferior, but love is a quick divider of shares: he that gathers much has nothing over, and he that gathers little has no lack. I soon ceased to think of him as my _new_ friend, for I seemed to have known him before I was born. I am going to tell the early part of his history. If only I could tell it as it deserves to be told! The most interesting story may be so narrated as that only the eyes of a Shakspere could spy the shine underneath its dull surface. He never told me any great portion of the tale of his life continuously. One thing would suggest another--generally with no connection in time. I have pieced the parts together myself. He did indeed set out more than once or twice to give me his history, but always we got discussing something, and so it was interrupted. I will not write what I have set in order as if he were himself narrating: the most modest man in the world would that way be put at a disadvantage. The constant recurrence of the capital _I_, is apt to rouse in the mind of the reader, especially if he be himself egotistic, more or less of irritation at the egotism of the narrator--while in reality the freedom of a man’s personal utterance _may_ be owing to his lack of the egotistic. Partly for my friend’s sake, therefore, I shall tell the story as--what indeed it is--a narrative of my own concerning him. Chapter II. WITH HIS PARENTS.