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 knew, was amused by it, and he probably had been taught by experience that it was useless to break in upon it. At any rate he did not, but merely said at the end, ‘Have you that box handy, Mrs. Maple? If so, you might bring it here.’ Mrs. Maple pointed her finger at him, either in accusation or in gloomy triumph. ‘There,’ she said, ‘was I to choose out the very words out of your mouth, Doctor, them would be the ones. And if I’ve took it to my own rebuke one half-a-dozen times, it’s been nearer fifty. Laid awake I have in my bed, sat down in my chair I have, the same you and Miss Mary gave me the day I was twenty year in your service, and no person could desire a better—yes, Miss Mary, but it is the truth, and well we know who it is would have it different if he could. ‘All very well,’ says I to myself, ‘but pray, when the Doctor calls you to account for that box, what are you going to say?’ No, Doctor, if you was some masters I’ve heard of and I was some servants I could name, I should have an easy task before me, but things being, humanly speaking, what they are, the one course open to me is just to say to you that without Miss Mary comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which her wits may