His ready
penetration discovered this change in his favour: he at once took
advantage of it. "Five minutes of your time is all I ask for," he said.
"Won't you indulge a man who sees his fellow-creatures all talking
happily round him, and feels dead and buried among them?"
The very exaggeration of his language had its effect on my mind. It
revealed to me the horrible isolation among humanity of the deaf, as I
had never understood it yet. Discretion is, I am sorry to say, not one of
the strong points in my character. I committed one more among the many
foolish actions of my life; I signed to the stranger to lead the way back
to the mill.
CHAPTER IV
HE EXPLAINS HIMSELF
Giles Toller's miserly nature had offered to his lodger shelter from wind
and rain, and the furniture absolutely necessary to make a bedroom
habitable--and nothing more. There was no carpet on the floor, no paper
on the walls, no ceiling to hide the rafters of the roof. The chair that
I sat on was the one chair in the room; the man whose guest I had rashly
consented to be found a seat on his bed. Upon his table I saw pens and
pencils, paper and ink, and a battered brass candlestick with a common
tallow candle in it. His changes of clothing were flung on the bed; his
money was left on the unpainted wooden chimney-piece; his wretched little
morsel of looking-glass (propped up near the money) had been turned with
its face to the wall.
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