I shall never forget writing one letter for a man who was leading a double life. He had only just come to our lodging-house, but he was so well known to all the old lodgers that I could see that he had been there before. When this man first came under my notice, he was in the act of sewing a patch on the knee of his trousers, the latter being still on his body. I may as well say here that he made a very bad job of it, for he sewed his trousers to a pair of drawers that were underneath; which made him swear so much that night, when he undressed, that irritated lodgers, disturbed from sleep, threatened to throw him out of the window. One day I asked a lodger what this man did for a living, thinking that he was either a toy-seller, paper-man, or market porter. The lodger began to chuckle, and said: "If you are down Brixton way to-morrow, you are likely to see him." As I asked the question for the sake of being sociable, and not from curiosity, I thought no more of the matter. However, some time after this I happened to be in Brixton, and saw the man I mention, standing in the gutter--blind. He saw me too, for he made an awful expression, which I translated into these words--Don't stop and speak to me, pass on. A few days after this unexpected meeting, he no sooner saw me entering the lodging-house kitchen than he came forward with an envelope and a sheet of writing paper. "Will you write me a letter?" he asked. "I will pay you." Now, I had been out all day and was hungry, and was just about to prepare my tea. So I told him sharply that if I wrote the letter I wanted nothing for doing it, and, whether I wrote it or not, he must give me a chance to have my tea first. Nearly all men that live in common lodging-houses talk to each other in this strain, for they are all more or less short-tempered, or, as they say--"scatty." So I knew that he would not take offence, and was not surprised to see him come forward, after he had given me ample time for tea. "I am not much of a scholar," he began. "What do you want me to write about?" I asked. "Well," said he, "a gentleman saw me in the street and took my address, and has just sent me a parcel of clothes, and I want to thank him. Here is his letter, with address, which was in the parcel." "All right," I answered, and did so at once. After I had done, I read aloud what I had written, and asked if it would do. He considered for a moment, and then said: "Perhaps you will write a little more and say as how Heaven will reward him for pitying a blind man." I could not help laughing at this, for he spoke so exactly that I believe the rogue had forgotten that he was not really blind.