From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness it is not wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly hope that I should never forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck me rudely. I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that friendship without shame--I who had given so little, who had accepted and profited by so much. I had the whole day before me in London, and I determined, at least in words, to set the balance somewhat straighter. Seated in the corner of a public place, and calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth the expression of my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my resolutions for the future. Till now, I told him, my course had been mere selfishness. I had been selfish to my father and to my friend, taking their help and denying them (which was all they asked) the poor gratification of my company and countenance. Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that letter was written and posted the consciousness of virtue glowed in my veins like some rare vintage. CHAPTER VI IN WHICH I GO WEST I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the family to breakfast. More than three years had intervened--almost without mutation in that stationary household--since I had sat there first, a young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties (Finnan haddock, kippered salmon, baps, and mutton-ham), and had wearied my mind in vain to guess what should be under the tea-cosy. If there were any change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem. My father's death once fittingly referred to with a ceremonial lengthening of Scots upper lips and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once (God help me!) into the more cheerful topic of my own successes. They had been so pleased to hear such good accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was that beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other? "You haven't it here? Not here? Really?" asks the sprightliest of my cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were likely I had brought it in the cab, or kept it concealed about my person like a birthday surprise. In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed to the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the _Sunday Herald_ and poor blethering Pinkerton had been accepted for their face. It is not possible to invent a circumstance that could have more depressed me; and I am conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a whipped schoolboy.