“Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you.”

“Have you got what you looked for?” I asked, to which he replied:⁠—

“I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was⁠—only some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad tomorrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some.”

When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:⁠—