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From that stupor or reverie I was aroused by the loud laughter of the bricklayers on the scaffolding near at hand, and I sprang with desperate energy to the task of righting the wrong. First, I replaced the box, then, stripping off my little jacket, I disinterred bar after bar of the soap. I scraped the thick of the mud off on the side of the barrow, and then wiping the bars as clean as I could on my jacket, I replaced them one by one in the box, nor did I lose any. By the time I had finished, and I had no help, a circumstance which even now I wonder at—it would have been hard to tell which was muddiest, the truck, the box, the soap, or myself. But my only object being to get that box home, I took no heed of such an extrinsic matter as mud; and when, at last, I pushed off again with my cargo, I felt quite a glow of legitimate pride, for that I had retrieved my disaster.

How I escaped another before emerging from that bad road I do not know; but I did, and presently arrived at my destination, overheated, unrecognisable for mud, but triumphant. I knocked at the door, and the laundress appeared, a comely figure in spotless print. She gave a little start back when she saw me, as if she feared I would soil her eyesight, but I said quickly—