Did it ever happen to you that you have met a person whom you have never heard of and never thought of before--a person who was destined to affect your fate in some way--and that from the first moment of your encounter you seemed fated to renew acquaintance with him? It has happened more than once to me, and it happened so in this case. That very afternoon, when I returned from a lonely tramp upon the hills, I found the man Hinge in the kitchen of the inn. He bore a note from Breschia to Brunow, and was awaiting the return of that gentleman, who was once again away in pursuit of the _soi-disant_ baroness, but had promised to be back in time for dinner. When I entered the kitchen to demand a draught of milk, the man rose up and saluted me, and explained his errand. In the course of my ramble I had had hardly anything but this man in mind, and I had been planning to make use of him. When I met him all my plans seemed to go to pieces. I shall have to confess before I have done with it that I am the poorest plotter in the world. Give me something downright to do, and I will try to do it; but in dodges and evasions and pretences I have little skill indeed. I took the note from the man's hand and promised that Brunow should receive it. Then I drank the milk which the landlady's daughter had already set before me, and stood there tongue-tied and bewildered, not knowing how to begin. The man himself relieved me. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, taking his glass in his left hand, and saluting again with the right. “Your health, sir.” “That's poor tack,” I said, nodding towards the glass. He had made a grimace over the wine. “Well, so it is, sir,” he replied; “but it's better than nothing, and it's about all we poor folks can afford, sir.” “Did you ever taste Scotch whiskey?” I asked him. He smiled a slow smile as if he remembered something pleasing. “Why, yes, sir, I have, sir, and I won't deceive you.” “Come to my room,” I said, “and I'll give you as good a glass as you ever tasted in your life.” He set down his glass of sour wine on the table with an emphatic quickness, and his soldierly tread sounded behind me in the uncarpeted passage and up the bare deal steps. When he came to my room I bade him sit down, but he remained standing, and I had to give the invitation as an order before he would obey it. Then he sat like a figure carved in wood, with his shoulders back, his head well up, a hand on either knee, and a face as expressionless as the back of his head. I got my flask out of my knapsack, and with it a little collapsible cup of silver, found the water-bottle, and set everything before him. “Help yourself!” He took a thimbleful. “Help yourself, man!” He took another thimbleful. I seized the flask from his hand and poured him enough for a good tumbler. “Now, there's the water; help yourself to that.” He obeyed, and tasted the mixture with a solemn satisfaction.