Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/41

 of removing his neighbour's landmark; but at this time in the morning my better nature was asleep.

I have often read of a man's better nature being suddenly awakened. The business is generally accomplished by an organ-grinder or a little child (I would back the latter, at all events—give it a fair chance—to awaken anything in this world that was not stone deaf, or that had not been dead for more than twenty-four hours); and if an organ-grinder or a little child had been around Ostend station that morning, things might have been different.

B. and I might have been saved from crime. Just as we were in the middle of our villainy, the organ-grinder or the child would have struck up, and we should have burst into tears, and have rushed from the carriage, and have fallen upon each other's necks outside on the platform, and have wept, and waited for the next train.

As it was, after looking carefully around to see that nobody was watching us, we slipped quickly into the carriage, and, making room for ourselves among the luggage there, sat down and tried to look innocent and easy.

B. said that the best thing we could do, when the other people came, would be to