"I was dining at the Brands' that evening, and happened to say to the man who took me in: 'Do you know how terrifying it is to talk to a person who holds one eye shut, and looks at you with the other?' He wanted to know what I meant; so I showed how my old lady had done it, with head pushed forward, and elbow well up. Everybody else went into fits; but my man turned out to be a rising oculist, and took it quite seriously; declared it must be a bad case of astigmatism; asked the name of the church, and is going off there to examine her eyes and prescribe glasses!
"I tell you all this, in case she was a protégé of yours; for she remembers you, David.
"I am doubtful as to what manner of reception she will give to my friend the oculist. I felt bound to tell him she would most probably say 'Garn!' and his convulsive amusement, seemed to me disproportionate to the mildness of the joke. Her incomprehensible remarks, and her astonishing cockney make rational conversation with her very difficult. While I was in the church, a mild-looking curate came in, and tried to explain something which was wanted. I could not hear the conversation, but I saw her, at the bottom of the church, holding her eye, and glaring at him. She came back to me, brandishing a dustpan. ''Ear that?' she said. 'Garn! As I always say to 'em: "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind 'orse!'"
"Now that sounded like a proverb, and she said it as if it were a very deep pronouncement, which might settle all ecclesiastical difficulties, and solve all parochial problems. But, when one comes to think of it, what on earth does it mean?
"Well, David, she remembers you; so I have no doubt whatever that you know all about her; when she became a widow—all caretakers are widows, aren't they? how, and from what cause; the exact number of her children; how many she has buried, and how many are out in the world; what 'carried off' the former, and what are the various occupations of the latter. Not possessing your wonderful faculty for unearthing the family history and inner life of caretakers, I only know, that her favourite conviction is: that a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse; and—that she remembers you.
"I felt shy about mentioning you, while I was examining all the places of special interest; but when I reached the door, to which she accompanied me, gaily twirling a moulting feather broom, I turned, and ventured to ask whether she remembered you. She instantly clapped her hand over her eye; but the other gleamed at me, with a concentrated scorn, for asking so needless a question; and with ill-disguised mistrust, as if I were a person who had no business to have even a nodding acquaintance with you.
"'It would taike a lot of furgittin' ter furgit 'im!' she observed, her face threateningly near mine; the whirling feather broom moulting freely over both of us. ''E's the sort of gent as maikes a body remember?'
"So now, my dear David, we know why I never forget to write to you by each mail. You are the sort of gent who makes a body remember!
"I asked her what she chiefly recollected about you. She stared at me for a minute, with chill disapproval. Then her face illumined, suddenly. ''Is smoile,' she said.