But I foresaw a day of reckoning--yes, I--because I am older, and a girl. And in the world there are other girls. One day Hugh John (or I am greatly mistaken) will turn the leaves of another book, and then Senancour the austere will be forgotten, passed by on his shelf like a chance acquaintance whose very name has become strange. Perhaps I wrong him. But this is what I think. At any rate I resolved to try and guide his thoughts into more cheerful paths (it is a pity we have not Senancour's pretty word '_sentier_'; I have always loved it). "Do you never observe _people_?" I asked him. He stared at me in amazement. "Why, of course I do," he answered, and he got down two more thick copy-books. Everything Hugh John did about this time was original and unexpected. "People!" he said, holding up the two manuscript books; "why, these are stuffed full of people. Enough to make a real book!" Then I confided to Hugh John the great secret that _I_ was making a book. A look of joy flashed over his face. "Let's make one together!" he said, "and not tell anybody!" "Let's!" I answered. Because I felt that I really owed Hugh John something for showing me the Cave. And it was arranged that he was to tell me about his People and Things, and I was to write everything down with my thoughts planted in here and there. VIII HUGH JOHN'S PEOPLE _Through a glass clearly. July, and hot._ If you put your eye to the glass (said Hugh John) you will see where one of my greatest friends lives--Mr. Butcher Donnan. Or rather he used to be a butcher. For now he has given up his trade to his son Nipper, and regrets it every minute of his waking day. Yes, that two-storied cottage with the garden in front, ablaze with flowers, with creepers clambering as high as the roof, that is "New Erin Villa," and the home of the most discontented man in Edam. Butcher Donnan has nothing to do. He hangs over his gate, and almost prays stray passers-by to stop and gossip. He has nothing to say to them or they to him. But when they are gone, he will pull out his big gold watch with a cluck like the cork drawn from a bottle, and say, "Thank God! Five minutes gone!" Then he will stroll down the lanes towards Nipper's shop, making butcher's eyes at all the cows which look at him over the hedges. He is secretly calculating how they will cut up--jealous of Nipper, who has it to do really every day.