It was about this time that Orchard took to making me his father confessor. He was always admitting small sins. He came in one night and said earnestly: “You know we were playing ha’penny nap at Green’s last Wednesday. Yes. Well, I didn’t put in the pool. It worries me. It was a mean trick, wasn’t it? Green kept saying, ‘Tit up,’ and I--I didn’t. Nobody noticed. It was pretty late. I feel ashamed of myself. What can I do?” “I don’t know that you can do anything now,” I returned, staring at his anxious face. “It was a mean, dirty trick,” he said despairingly. “I must have cheated you fellows first and last out of two bob. What can I do?” “You can’t do anything. What--what does Hopkins think? How is Hopkins, by the way? Quiet kind of fellow, isn’t he? Why don’t you bring him down some night?” “Hopkins! Oh! he’s a regular recluse. Steeped to his eyes in Italian art. Plays well, doesn’t he?” “Don’t know. I’ve never heard him.” Orchard looked at me in perplexity. “Never heard him! That’s odd. Why, he was practicing until one this morning.” Another night he came in, his pocket bulging with a book. He sat down in my saddle-bag chair with a groan. His face was clammy with emotion. “I’ve--I’ve stolen this book,” he said, bringing out a fat volume with lots of plates. “Couldn’t help it for the life of me. What on earth am I to do? It was on a stall in front--that shop at the corner of the Turnstile. They’ll run me in. What do you advise?” “That’s a matter for Hopkins. It’s on Italian art, isn’t it? The plates look good; no doubt he’ll be delighted. All’s fair in love and collecting, you know--but the policeman doesn’t admit that. I wouldn’t do it again.” The third time I happened to go up to him. He answered the door to my knock. For a moment, before he recognized me, there was blank horror on his once carelessly cynical face. “Hopkins in?” I asked, with a comprehensive movement of the head. Hopkins was a nuisance, although--perhaps _because_--one never saw him. I had more than once asked Orchard why he had taken in an odd, churlish chap like that, and he had answered, in a short, matter-of-fact way, that it was a perfectly natural selection--they had tastes in common. That night he said, looking very relieved: “Hopkins is out.” We went into the sitting room. Before he sat down he added, with a vague, troubled stare about the place: “Hopkins is a very untidy chap. He leaves his things about.” He made an irritable movement with his hands about the bare, big table in the middle of the room--and only shifted the evening paper. Then he threw himself into the easy chair on the opposite side of the hearth, and I brought out my tobacco pouch. “I’m going from bad to worse,” he broke out, but retaining enough presence of mind to hand me a box of matches and an ash tray.