Then he began to sketch me, and, as he worked, he chattered about this and that.
"Funny thing," he said, "I had a knife when I started and it's disappeared."
"Things have that habit," I said.
"Yes," said he, "things and people, and often people disappear as suddenly and completely as things—chin quarter of an inch lower—just so—thank you forever—"
"And what experience have you had with people disappearing?" I asked.
"And you so young and masterful."
"I?" he said. "Why, a very near and dear experience. When I was quite a little boy my own father went to his place of business and was never heard of again from that day to this. But he must have done it on purpose, because it was found that he had put all his affairs into the most regular and explicit order—"
I felt a little shiver, as if I had taken cold.
"And, do you know," here the young man dawdled with his pencil and presently ceased working for the moment, "I've always felt as if I had had a hand in it—though I was only seven. I'd done something so naughty and wrong that I looked forward all day to my father's home-coming as a sinner looks forward to going to hell. My father had never punished me. But he would this time, I knew—and I was terribly afraid and—sometimes I have thought that, perhaps, I prayed to God that my father might never come home. I'm not sure I prayed that—but I have a sneaking suspicion that I did. Anyway, he never came, and, Great Grief! what a time there was. My mother nearly went insane—"
"What had you done?" I asked, forcing a smile, "to merit such terrible punishment?"
The young man blushed.