One of them reporters he says to me to write the truth about how I got into jail; nobody else never done it and stuck to facts. But this is the truth so help me; it was all on account of that watch, which my intentions with regard to was perfectly honorable, and all that goes before leads up to that watch. There wasn't no larceny about it; it was just another mistake on the part of the police. If I'd of been stealing wouldn't I stole the silverware a week before that? The more I travel around the more dumb people I see that can't understand how an honest and upright citizen can get into circumstantial evidence and still be a honest and upright citizen. X.--The Penitent |You, who are not married,” said the penitent, “cannot know--can never realize----” He hesitated, his glance wandering over the evidences of luxury, the hints of Oriental artistry, the esthetic effectiveness of Dr. Eustace Beaulieu's studio. “Proceed,” said Dr. Beaulieu, suavely. “What I may know is not the important thing. You do not address yourself to me, but through me to that principle of Harmony in the Cosmos which is Spirit--Ultimate Spirit--which we call God. All that I can do is assist you to get into Accord with the Infinite again, help you to vibrate in unison with the Cosmic All.” “You are right; I do not look to you,” said the penitent, “for ease of mind or spirit.” And a fleeting half-smile showed in his eyes, as if some ulterior thought gave a certain gusto to the manner in which he stressed the pronoun _you_. But the rest of his scarred and twisted face was expressionless, beneath the thick mask of a heavy gray-streaked beard that grew almost to his eyes. * Author's Note: “The Penitent” was suggested by two poems, “A Forgiveness,” by Browning, and “The Portrait,” by Owen Meredith. Dr. Eustace Beaulieu was the leader--nay, the founder--of one of the many, many cults that have sprung up in New York City and elsewhere in America during the past three or four decades. An extraordinary number of idle, well-to-do women gathered at his studio two or three times a week, and listened to his expositions of ethics _de luxe_, served with just the proper dash of Oriental mysticism and European pseudoscience. He was forty, he was handsome, with magnetic brown eyes and the long sensitive fingers of a musician; he was eloquent, he was persuasive, he was prosperous.