Today's Stichomancy for Ringo Starr

and cunning such as I love. What did I tell thee when I rode away, boy?"

"'Hold the Manor or hang," said I. I had never forgotten it.

"'True. And thou hast held." He clambered from his saddle and with his sword's point cut out a turf from the bank and gave it me where I kneeled.' Dan looked at Una, and Una looked at Dan. 'That's seisin,' said Puck, in a whisper.

"'Now thou art lawfully seised of the Manor, Sir Richard," said he -'twas the first time he ever called me

much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick with self- love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, one- third loath, for a repetition of the discipline.

these be added the consciousness of failing powers, the sting of self- reproach, what prospect have I of any further joy in living? It may be, you know," he added, "that God out of his great kindness is intervening in my behalf[14] to suffer me to close my life in the ripeness of age, and by the gentlest of deaths. For if at this time sentence of death be passed upon me, it is plain I shall be allowed to meet an end which, in the opinion of those who have studied the matter, is not only the easiest in itself, but one which will cause the least trouble to one's friends,[15] while engendering the deepest longing for the departed. For of necessity he will only be thought of with regret and longing who leaves nothing behind unseemly or

The Apology