“James could tell a good story too, and I used to keep him at it of an evening—any evening save Sunday. On Sunday, James did nothing in the intervals of duty except read the Bible—the ‘Good Book,’ as he called it. This New Testament was one of those large type editions which very old people use.
“His mother—dead and gone—had left him that Book, and also her gold-rimmed specs, and it was interesting, on a Sunday afternoon, to see James sitting solemnly down to the Book, and shipping those specs athwart his nose.
“‘What on earth,’ I said once to him, ‘do you use the specs for, my friend?’
“When James looked up at me, half-upbraidingly, those eyes of his, seen through the powerful lenses, looked as big and wild and round as a catamount’s. It was unearthly.
“‘My mother bade me. Would you disobey your mother?’
“This was a bombshell, and I said no more.
“But there was one subject on which James and I never disagreed—namely, ‘the ladies,’ as he called women folks. ‘They are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,’ James would say, ‘and I means to steer clear on ’em.’ And James always did.
“There was one pleasure James and I had in common—namely, witnessing a good tragedy on the boards of Liverpool theatre. You see this was our port of destination on our return from the far, far south. Mind, we wouldn’t go to see a drama, because there might be too much nonsensical love business in it, and too many of ‘the frivolous antics of women’—James’s own words. But in a tragedy the women often came to grief, which James thought was only natural.
“So we chose tragedy.
“Now, one night at this same theatre, I had one of the strangest experiences of my life; and never yet have I found any one who could explain it.