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Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902

"The Way of All Flesh"

Each step he took, each face or object that he knew,
helped at once to link him on to the life he had led before his
imprisonment, and at the same time to make him feel how completely that
imprisonment had cut his life into two parts, the one of which could bear
no resemblance to the other.
He passed down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street and so to the Temple, to
which I had just returned from my summer holiday. It was about half past
nine, and I was having my breakfast, when I heard a timid knock at the
door and opened it to find Ernest.


CHAPTER LXX

I had begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent for me, and on the
following day I thought he had shaped well. I had liked him also during
our interview in prison, and wanted to see more of him, so that I might
make up my mind about him. I had lived long enough to know that some men
who do great things in the end are not very wise when they are young;
knowing that he would leave prison on the 30th, I had expected him, and,
as I had a spare bedroom, pressed him to stay with me, till he could make
up his mind what he would do.
Being so much older than he was, I anticipated no trouble in getting my
own way, but he would not hear of it.


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