"'Yes, yes,' I whispered, bending over him (there were
tears in both our eyes), 'tell me is it going up, or
going down?'
"'It is going'--he murmured,--then his eyes closed--'it
is going--'
"'Yes, yes,' I said, 'which?'
"'It is going'--he repeated feebly and then, quite suddenly
he fell back on the pillows and his soul passed. And we
never knew which way it was going. It was very sad. Later
on, of course, after he was dead, we knew, as everybody
knew, that it went down."
5.--The Reminiscences of Mr. Apricot
"Rather a cold day, isn't it?" I said as I entered the
club.
The man I addressed popped his head out from behind a
newspaper and I saw it was old Mr. Apricot. So I was
sorry that I had spoken.
"Not so cold as the winter of 1866," he said, beaming
with benevolence.
He had an egg-shaped head, bald, with some white hair
fluffed about the sides of it. He had a pink face with
large blue eyes, behind his spectacles, benevolent to
the verge of imbecility.
"Was that a cold winter?" I asked.
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