As I entered the library, I wondered what it was that I had done; or, rather, what it was that I had looked as if I were doing. For that is my trouble--that I look guilty so easily. I never cash a cheque at the bank but I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder and to hear a stern voice saying, "You cummer longer me." If I walk through any of the big stores with a parcel in my hand I expect to hear a voice whispering in my ear, "The manager would like to see you quietly in his office." I have never forged or shoplifted in my life, but the knowledge that a real forger or shoplifter would try to have the outward appearance of a man as innocent as myself helps to give me the outward appearance of a man as guilty as he. When I settle a bill by cheque, my "face-of-a-man-whose-account-is-already-overdrawn" can be read across the whole length of the shop as soon as I enter the door. Indeed, it is so expressive that I had to give up banking at Cox's during the war. "Good morning," said the policeman. "I thought I'd better tell you that I found your dining-room window open at six o'clock this morning when I came on duty." "Oh!" I said, rather disappointed. For by this time I had prepared my speech from the dock, and it seemed a pity to waste it. There is no part quite so popular as that of the Wrongly Accused. Every hero of every melodrama has had to meet that false accusation at some moment during the play; otherwise we should not know that he was the hero. I saw myself in the dock, protesting my innocence to the last; I saw myself entering the witness box and remaining unshaken by the most relentless cross-examination; I saw my friends coming forward to give evidence as to my unimpeachable character.... And yet, after all, what could one's friends say? Imagine yourself in the dock, on whatever charge it may be, and imagine this and that friend coming forward to speak to you. What can they say? What do they know? They know that you are a bore or not a bore, a grouser or not a grouser, generous or mean, sentimental or cynical, an optimist or a pessimist, and that you have or have not a sense of humour. None of these is a criminal offence. Is there anything else that your friends can say about you which can establish the likelihood of your innocence? Not very much. Nor should we be flattered if there were. When somebody says of us, "Oh, I can read old Jones like a book; I know him inside and out--for the most straightforward, simple creature," we protest indignantly. But if somebody says, "There's a lot more in Jones than you think; I shall never quite understand him," then we look modestly down our nose and tell ourselves that we are Jones, the Human Enigma. Women have learnt all about this. They realize that the best way to flatter us is to say earnestly, with a shake of the head, "Your face is such a mask; I shall never know what you're really thinking." How that makes us purr!