 CHAPTER 32 OF AUDUM LEAVES From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe Esquire Part 2 September 27th Have not stirred from the house? I have not heard any voice but Flores. She has been uncommonly amiable and fascinating, and I... Am I not rather bewitched? I cannot keep my resolution of not being flirted with. I cannot be wise and reserved and indifferent. Am I trifling? Or am I in earnest? Indeed, I don't know. I only know I am constantly at the side of little handsome, without knowing how I came there. She makes me sing with her, ride with her, walk with her at her will, and as if that was not enough for one day, to test her power over me. Tonight she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Eti playing a waltz for us at Flores' request and giving me a long, serious look as I approach the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober and more sad and came away to my room to have some talk with my real self. Now for it. Says I to myself. A truce to your braiding, you old scald. Tell me at once how you find yourself affected towards this charming little flora. Says myself. There are no tastes in common between her and me. Says I quickly, music! Then try it. A moment or two. But the snarling old fellow asked whether I liked her singing or her flattery. For this part he thought we both liked to hear our own voices and agreed and nothing else. Taste, indeed. When I would not let her sing a song I cared a Philip for. In short, my self-communion ended in some very sage resolutions. I faired the beautiful head with the shining curls, was somewhat vacant. And the heart was that empty likewise. Was that hidden cell the home of all the loveliest affections? The firmest and purest faith and motive. Everything that should be there to rule the life and my picture in the wall? I question this. Does she love me? Oh yes, answered Vanity. Oh no, said Goodsense, not at all. If your picture is in her heart it is one of a whole gallery. Don't be a fob, it is not your character. Don't let flora make a fool of you. And I resolved. September 27th. A very dull day. You are as sober as a judge, said Flora at breakfast. I caught at his eye, but it said nothing. Nantes Tabitha, who yesterday evidently thought me in desperate case, and once inquired about my income very significantly, now suspected a quarrel between Flora and me. I was embarrassed, and other turned the cream. No great loss, said Etty, seeing that I was chagrined. I say she made up of a lover's quarrel. Said on Tabitha, silly old woman. No, silly young fellow. Flora has revenged herself on me as she meant to do for defying her power. She has turned my head, made me act like a simpleton. But Richards himself again, and wiser than he was. Pierre. I endeavoured to talk more with Miss Etty, that the change in my manner might be less observed. It is all natural that I should be as grave as a judge when I addressed myself to so quiet a member of society. She seemed to divine my object, and sustain the dialogue. I never knew her to do it before. It is not diffidence. It seems that has been the cause of this reserve. I was the more diffident of the two, failing to express my thoughts. Well, from a hurry and uncertainty of mind, which I am not often troubled with all. It was partly astonishment, in truth, that confused me. Little ugly and I, actually exchanging ideas. I shall call her little ugly still, however, for I could not make her look at me as she spoke, nor answer my wit by a change of countenance. September 28th. Little handsome cannot be convinced that the flirtation is over, absolutely at an end. She alternately rails at my capricious solemnity and pretends to be grieved at it. I can see that nothing but my avoidance of tete a tete is my safety. Should this sentimental tone prevail, then tears come into those beautiful eyes. I am a gone man at my earnest request. I have grown humble or bold enough to ask a favour. Miss Etty has brought, or rather dragged, her work-basket into the parlour. A great basket it is, so great, that I imagine in her own apartment she gets into the middle of it bodily. I sat down towards the motions of her adroit little digits in darning stockings and mending homely garments. I imagined, rather than so, a humorous gleam in her eye as I did so. And there was certainly a slight contraction in her mouth and length, as if to counteract an inclination of the muscles to move in the opposite direction. Flora fluttered about the room like a bright-hued butterfly, pausing a moment at a window or a bookcase or resting awhile to play a few capricious notes on the piano. And sometimes coming to view Miss Etty's employment as if it were a branch of industry she was unacquainted with and curious about. My maples are turning red already, setting sun through a glorious light through their tinted foliage, and the still bosom of the lake reflected it in a softened, changeable hue of mingled crimson and silver. Flora was standing at the door, I somehow found myself there also, but I talked over my shoulder to Aunt Tabitha about potatoes. I have a fancy for a walk around the pond, said Flora. After a pause she looked at me as much to say, Don't you see, you monster! It is too late for me to go alone. Miss Flora, I will second your wish if you can drum up a third party, said I, point blank. Flora blushed and pouted for a moment, then beckoned to little ugly, who disobligingly suggested that the grass would be wet. It so happened there was no dew, and Flora convinced her of the fact by running in the grass and then presenting the soul of her shoe for her inspection. Miss Etty, her ill-chosen objection being vanquished, went for her bonnet, and we set forth. Miss Flora's arm in mine, as a matter of course, and Miss Etty's in hers, save where the exigencies of the woodland path gave her an excuse to drop behind. A little boat tied to a stump suggested to Flora a new whim. Instead of going around the pond, which I now began to like doing, I must worry myself with rowing her across. I was ready enough to do it, however, and not Miss Etty quietly observed that the pond was muddy, and the boat unsea-worthy. Flora would not have yielded to twenty feet of water, but mud. She sighed and resumed my arm, I offering the other to Miss Etty and so determined away that she could not wave accepting it, marched forward with spirits rising to highly in locacity, presently feeling a sudden irritation at the feather-like lightness with which little ugly's fingers just touched my over, as if she disdained any support from me. I caught her hand and drew it through my arm, and when I relinquished it, pressed her arm to my side with mine, thinking she would snatch it away and walk alone in offended dignity. Whether she was too really dignified for that, or took my rebuke as it was intended, I know not, but she leaned on my arm with somewhat greater confidence during the remainder of our walk, and now even volunteered a remark. Before we finished the circumambulation of the pond, she had quite forgotten her sulky reserve and talked with much earnestness and animation. Flora subsided into a listener with a willing interest which raised her in my estimation considerably. Now, the time alone in my room and journalizing it behooves me to gather and record some of these words precious from their rarity. Flora and I, in our merry nonsense, had a mock dispute and referred the matter to Miss Etty for arbitration. Etty, mind you's side with me, said Flora. Be an impartial umpire, Miss Etty, said I. And you will be on my side." A little ugly was obliged to confess that she had not heard a word of the matter. Her thoughts being elsewhere intently engaged. I must request you to excuse my inattention, she said, and to repeat what you are saying. The latter request I scorn to grant, said I. And the former we will consider about when we have heard what thoughts have been preferred to our most edifying conversation. You shall tell us, said Flora. Yes, or we till go off and leave you to your meditations here in the dark woods with owls and the tree-toes whom you probably prefer for company. Miss Etty condescended to confess she should be frightened, without my manful protection. Quite a triumph! I must thank you, she said. For the novelty of an evening walk in the woods, I enjoyed it, I confess, very highly. Look at those dark, mysterious vistas and those deepening shadows blending the bank with its mirror. How different from the trite daylight truth! It took strong hold of my imagination. Go on, and so you were thinking. I was hardly doing so much as thinking. I was seeing it to remember. Etty draws like an artist, said Flora, in a whisper. I was taking a mental daguerreotype of my companions by twilight and of all the scene round, too, in the same gray tint, just to look at some ten or fifteen years hence, when, let us all agree, said I, on the twenty-eighth of September, eighteen, to remember this evening, I am certain I shall look back to it with pleasure. Oh, horrid, shrieked Flora, how can you talk so? By that time you will be a shocking middle-aged sort of person. I always wonder how people can be resigned to live when they have lost youth and with it all that makes life bearable fifteen years, dismal thought. I shall have outlived everything I care about in life. So moaned little Hanson. But you may have found new sources of interest, suggested I, perhaps a little too tenderly, for I had some sympathy with her dread of that particular phase of existence, middle-agedness. Perhaps as the mistress of a household, worse and worse, screamed Flora, a miserable comforter you are, as if it were not enough merely to grow old, but one must be a slave and a martyr, never doing anything one would prefer to do, nor going anywhere that one wants to go, down forever to one spot and one perceptual companion. Ha! Planning dinners every day for cooks hardly less ignorant than yourself, added I, laughing at her selfish horror of matronly bondage, yet provoked at it. Misety, would you, if you could, stand still instead of going forward? My happiness is altogether different from Flora's, she replied. Though we were brought up side by side, what has taught me to be independent of the world and its notice was my being continually compared with her, and assured with compassionate regret that I had none of those qualifications which could give me success in general society. Which was a libel, I began, without the last syllable, said Flora, catching up the word, at any rate. I knew I was plain and shy and made friends slowly, so I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious than it was ten years ago, that I feel certain I shall have a wider and fuller enjoyment of the same ten years hence. What they are, I partly guess, and partly drew from her, in her uncommonly frank mood, I begin to perceive that I, as well as Flora, have been cherishing most mistaken and unsatisfactory aims. My surly old inner self has often hinted as much, but I would not hear him. Etty may have her mistaken views too, but she has set me thinking. Well, you crusty old curmudgeon, what has been my course since the awe of the schoolmaster ceased to be a sort of external conscience? You told me study was none of your business, says conscience, and a pretty piece of work you have made of it without me. Idle in college, and when you begin to perceive the connection between study and what people call success in life, overworking yourself here you are and just beginning to rethink yourself that I might have furnished just the right degree of stimulus if you had buttelled out it. Hock! Hock! It is the duet! That silvery second is Etty's. I will steal downstairs. And when they have ended, pop in and it shall go hard, but I will have another song. Parlor dark and empty, I fancied, I heard Flora giggling somewhere, but I might be mistaken. Yet the voices sounded as if they came from that quarter, and I am sure I heard one note of the piano to give the pitch. Hock! I hear the parlor door softly shut, and now the stairs creak and betray them stealing up as they probably betrayed me stealing down. They only blew out the lights and kept perfectly still. Witches! Donkey! Etty, your voice is still with me, clear, sweet, and penetrating as it was when you talked so eloquently tonight in our dreamy ramble. What if I had early adopted her idea that with every conscious power is bound up both the duty and the pleasure of developing it? Might I not now have reached higher ground with health of body and mind? Ambition is an unhealthy stimulus. A wretchedly uneasy guest too in the breast of an invalid, I would feign have a pure motive which shall dismiss or control it. Etty! What are the uses to be made of her talents? All she lives thus withdrawn into a world of her own. Certainly, she is wrong. I shall convince her of it when our friendship, now fairly planted, I trust, shall have taken root. Now we shall be the best friends in the world and I will confide to her my... my... Oh! I am nodding over my paper and that click says the old clock at the stair-head is making ready to announce midnight. September 29th Capricious are the ways of a woman kind. Little ugly is more thoroughly self-occupied and undemonstrative than ever. I am chagrined. I think I am... an ill-used man. I am downright angry and have half a mind to flirt with little handsome out of spite. Only Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to flora and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the sermon was homely and dull and that the singing was discordant. Miss Etty assented but very coldly and presently she bolted into an old red-house and left me to go home by myself. When we started for church again she was among the missing and we found her in the pew on arrival, thus pointedly to avoid me. It might be accident, however, that she did not refuse to sing from the same hymn-book with me and pointed to a verse on the other page, quaint but excellent. After all, Old Watts has written the best hymns in the language. Evening. Without choice I found myself walking round the pond again. It was as smooth as glass and the leaves scarcely trembled on the trees and bushes around it and in my heart rained a similar calm. A strange quiet has fallen on my usually restless and anxious mind. I thought that in future I could be content not to look beyond the present day and having done my best in all circumstances that I could leave the results to follow as God wills. At that moment I could sincerely say let him set me high or low wherever he has work for me to perform. If I can remain thus quiet in mind my health will soon return, I feel assured. If a well-founded distrust I fear this peace must be only a mood to pass away when my natural spirits return. The fever of covetousness, of rivalry, of envy and ambitious earthly aspirations will come back. Like waves upon the lake these uneasy feelings will chase each other over my soul. I picked up a little linen wristband at this moment which I recognized. She does not deserve to have it again salky little ugly, said I. I will put it in my pocketbook and keep it as a remembrance her for I am glad to perceive this is the very spot where we stood when we agreed to remember it and each other fifteen years hence. I shall see what I shall be then and I shall have some aid from this funny little talisman. It will speak to me quite as intelligibly and distinctly as its owner in a silent mood at any rate. Hi-ho! How lonely I feel tonight! Every human soul is, must be, a hermit yet there might be something near a companionship found for mine as yet. No one knows me, my real self. Ha! old fellow, I like you better than I did. Let us be good friends. End of From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 2 Recording by Adrin Levitsky, Chapter 33 of Autumn Leaves This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Adrin Levitsky, Autumn Leaves Edited by Anna Wales Abbott From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 3 September 30th A golden sunrise. How much one loses under a false idea of its being a luxury to sleep in the morning? Reclining under Farmer Puddingstone's Elm and looking upon the glassy pond in which the glowing sky mirrored itself, my soul was fired with poetic inspiration. On the blank page of a letter I wrote, How holy the calm in the stillness of morn! And threw down my paper being suddenly quenched by self-ridicule as I was debating whether to write to Ethelund over the top. Returning that way after my ramble, I found the following conclusion pinned to the tree by a jackknife. How holy the calm in the stillness of morn! When to call him to breakfast, Josh toots on the horn. The ducks gives a quack and the cow gives a moo and the children chimes in with a plaintiff boo-hoo. How holy the calm in the stillness of noon! When the pot is a-singin' its silvery tune. It's soft, woolly tune just like Arabi's daughter while the tea kettle plays up the symphony-arter. How holy the calm in the stillness of night! When the moon, like a pumpkin, looks yoller and bright! While the owls and the catty-dids screeching like thyme just brings me up close to the end of my rhyme. And, underneath was added, as if in scorn of my fruitless endeavour, I wrote that all right off, as fast as you could shell-corn SP. I suppose it is by way of thanks for my having driven the pigs from the garden that I find a great bunch of dahlias adorning my mantel-piece, a brown earthen pitcher, and in the middle of the dahlias a magnificent sunflower it must be my aunt's doing, and its very homeliness pleases me, just as I love her homely sincerity of affection. Who arranges the glasses in the parlour? Etty. I would not fear to affirm from the asters and goldenrod-cheek by joe with petunias and carnations. I wonder if you would not like some of the clematis I saw twarning about a dead tree by the pond. It is more beautiful in its present state than when it was in flower. Etty loves wildflowers because she is one herself, and loves to hide here in her native nook, when, oh, I, I might accept my own, gives her more than a casual glance. Noon. I shall think it quite uncivil of little ugly if she does not volunteer to arrange my share of the booty I am bringing, now that I have almost broken my neck, and quite my cane to obtain it. This I said to myself as I came into the house by the kitchen entrance and proceeded to deposit my trailing treasures on Nora's table by the side of a yellow squash. Do you go with me to Captain Blacks? said Etty's voice at the side door. The old folks have not seen you since you return. I can't! said Flora with a drawl. Yes, do! be coaxible for once. It only makes me obstinate to coax. Why not go without me, I beg? I am no novelty. I was and twice only yesterday. Old people like a tension from such as you because because it is unreasonable to expect it. The old man is failing. I can't do him any good. It is dusty and my gown is long. It would please him to see you. I went to sit with him yesterday but Timothy Digford came in with the same intent. So I went to church having walked in the graveyard till the bell rang. Owl that you are! I don't envy you, the lively meditations you must have had. Why don't you go? It's of no use waiting for me. What? Will you let me carry both these baskets? There, put the little one on top of the other. I don't think three or four peaches and a few flowers can add much to the weight. It is tiresome enough to do what I don't want to do when it is really necessary. And little handsome danced into the parlour without perceiving me. I laid a detaining hand on Eti's basket as she put herself in motion on which she turned round with a look of unfeigned astonishment. May I not be a substitute for Flora, I inquired. I did not require any aid, said Miss Eti shyly. It is not on that account I was urging Flora. Please, to let me have the basket. Indeed, it is quite necessary you should trouble yourself. She insisted, as I persevered and carrying off my load. It is the old red house, is it not? said I, with a roof sloping almost to the ground. And shall I say that you sent this? A view of my strange fizz will not refresh the old people like the sight of Flora's fresh young face, but I shall go in and make the agreeable as well as I can. Are you really an earnest? Asked Eti, looking full in my face with a smile of wonder that made her radiantly beautiful. She turned away, blushing at my surprised nigger gaze and, taking up her little basket, joined me, without a word of answer on my part. It was some time before I quite recovered from a strange flurry of spirits, which made my heart bump very much as it does when I hear any unexpected good news. And then I dashed away upon the subject of old age, and anything else that came uppermost in the hope of drawing the soul-lighted eyes to mine again, with that transfiguring smile playing upon the lips. But I was like an unskillful magician. I had lost the spell. I could not again discover the spring I had touched. In vain I said to myself, I'll make her do it again. Little ugly wouldn't. She answered my incoherent smiles in her usual sedate manner, and I believe it was only in my imagination that her cheek dimpled a little with the heightened colour known then when I was particularly eloquent. Introduced by Miss Eti, I was cordially welcomed. I'm always affected by the sight of an aged woman who at all reminds me of the grandmother who is so indulgent to my prankful boyhood. The old man, too, interest me. He has seen much of the world in his seafaring life and related his adventures in a most unhackneyed style. I'll go and see them every day. One of the captain's anecdotes was very good. An old salt? He said. Once. Once. What was it? How very lovely Eti looked, sitting on a cricket at the old woman's feet and with a half-smile on her face submitting her polished little head to be stroked by her trembling hands. This I saw out of the corner of my eye. Huck! Aunt Tabitha's called to dinner. I'm glad of it. I was scribbling such nonsense when I have so much to write better worthwhile. Twelve o'clock. The night is beautiful and it is a piece of self-denial to close the shutter, light my lamp, and write in my journal. Peace of mind came yesterday. Positive happiness today. Neither of which I can analyse. I only know I have not been so thoroughly content since the acquisition of my first jackknife, nor so proud since the day when I first sported a shining beaver. I have conquered Eti's distrust. She has actually promised me her friendship. I am rather surprised that I am so enchanted at this triumph over a prejudice. I am hugely delighted, not because it is a triumph, however. Vanity has nothing to do with it. It is a worthier feeling, one in which humility mingles with a more cordial self-respect than I have hitherto been conscious of. I can, and I will, deserve Eti's good opinion. She is an uncompromising judge, but I will surprise her by going beyond what she believes me capable of. I never had a sister. I shall adopt Eti, and when I go home, we will write every week, if not every day. But how came it all about? By what blessed sunbeams can the ice have been softened? Till now, as I hope, it is broken up forever. People under the same roof cannot long mistake each other, it seems, else Eti and I should never have become friends. As we left the door of Captain Black's house and turned into the field path to avoid the dust, Eti said, I do not know whether you care much about it, but you have given pleasure to these good old people who have but little variety in their daily routine, being poor and infirm and lonely. It is really a duty to cheer them up if we can. I felt that it warmed my heart to have shared that duty with her, and I said so. I thought she looked doubtful and surprised. It was a good opening for egotism, and I improved it. I saw that she was no uninterested listener, but all along rather suspicious and incredulous, as if what I was claiming for myself was inconsistent with her previous notions of my disposition. I believe I had made some little impressions Saturday night, but her old distrust had come back by Sunday morning. Now she was again shaken. At last, looking up with the air of one who has taken a mighty resolve, she said, I presume such a keen observer as yourself must have noticed that the most reserved people are, on some occasion, the most frank and direct. I am going to tell you that I feel some apology due to you. If my first impressions of your character are really incorrect, I am puzzled what to think. I am to suppose that your first impressions were not as favourable as those of Mrs. Black, whom I heard remark that I was an amiable youth with an uncommonly pleasant smile. Just the opposite, in fact. Pardon me. By I you had a mocking, ironical cast of countenance. I felt sure at once you were the sort of person I never could make a friend of and acquaintances I'd leave to Flora, who wants to know everybody. I thought the less I had to do with you, the better. I felt hurt and almost insulted. I had not been mistaken, then. She had disliked me and perhaps disliked me yet. It was not that I stood in fear of your satire, she continued. I am indifferent to ridicule or censure in general. No one but a friend has power to wound me. A flattering emphasis. Truly. I felt my temper a little stirred by Miss Etty's frankness. I was sulkily silent. I had no claim to any forbearance, any consideration for peculiarities of any sort. I am perfectly resigned to being the theme of your wit in any circle if you can find alt in my country-bred rays to amuse you. Sounds! I must speak. My conduct to Flora must have confirmed the charming impression produced by my unlucky fizz, I imagine. But don't bear malice against me in her behalf. You must have seen that she was perfectly able to revenge herself. Etty's light-hearted laugh rung out and reminded me of my once baffled curiosity when it reached my ear from Nora's domain. But though this unsuppressed mirth of hers revealed the prettiest row of teeth in the world and made the whole face decidedly beautiful, somehow or other it gave me no pleasure but rather a feeling of depression. My joining in it was pure pretence. Presently the brightness faded and I found myself gazing at the cold countenance of little ugly again. No, I did not refer to Flora, said she. As you say, she can avenge her own quarrel and we both were quite as ready to laugh at you as you could be to laugh at us, I assure you. No doubt of it, said I with some peek. But what I cannot forgive you, cannot think of with any toleration is what, cried I, astonished. How have I offended? A man of any right feeling at all could not make game of an aged woman his own relative at the same time that he was receiving her hearty and affectionate hospitality. Neither have I done so, cried I, in a towering passion. You do me a great wrong in accusing me of it. I would knock any man down who should treat my aunt with any disrespect. And if I have sometimes allowed Flora to do it unrebuked, you well know that she might once have pulled my hair or cuffed my ears and I should have thought a becoming thing for a young lady to do. I have played the fool under your eye and submit that you should entertain no high opinion of my wisdom. But you have no right to judge so unfavorably of my heart. If I have spoken to my aunt with boyish petulance, she vexed me, at least it was to her face, and regretted and atoned for to her satisfaction. I am incapable of deceiving her, much less of ridiculing her either behind her back or before her face. I respond to her love for me with sincere gratitude and the sister of my grandmother shall never want any attention that an own grandson could render while I live. I shall find it hard to forgive you this accusation, Miss Etty, I said hortily and shut my mouth as if I would never speak to her again. She made no answer, but looked up into my face with one of those wondrous smiles. It went as straight to my heart as a pistol bullet could do, my high indignation proving no defense against it. I was instantly vanquished and as I heartily shook the hand she held out to me I was just able to refrain from pressing it to my lips, which now I think of it. Would have been a most absurd thing for me to do. I wonder what could have made me think of doing it. After dinner I hear Flora's musical laugh and the mysterious bourgeois and a low congratulatory little murmur of good humour on Etty's part. I believe she is afraid to laugh loud, lest I should hear her do it and rush to the spot. The door is ajar. I'll storm the castle. Flora admitted me with a shout of welcome. The instant I tapped Etty pushed a rocking chair toward me but said nothing. The little room was almost lined with books, drawings, paintings, shells, corals and in the sunny window plants met my exploring gaze but the great basket was nowhere to be seen. It was scot up for the nonce, I imagine. Etty rogue! This is the pleasantest nook in the house. It is a shame you have not been let in before, said Flora zealously. You shall see at his drawings. Neither of us opened the portfolio she seized, however, but watched Etty's eyes. They were cast down with a diffident blush which gave me pain. I was indeed an intruder. She gave us the permission we waited for, however. There were many good copies of lessons. Those I did not dwell upon. But the sketches spirited though imperfect. I studied as if they had been those of an Alston. Etty was evidently in a fidget at this preference of the smallest line of original talent over the corrected performances which are like those of everybody else. I drew out a full length figure done in black chalk on brown paper. It chained Flora's wandering affection as quite new. It was a young man with his chair tipped back. His feet rested on a table with a slipper perched on each toe. His hands were clasped upon the back of his head. The face, really, I was angry at the diabolical expression given it by eyes looking askance, a lips pressed into an arch by a contemptuous smile. It was a corner of this very brown sheep that I saw under her arm. When she vanished from the kitchen as I entered the vociferous mirth which attracted me was at my expense before Flora could recognize my portrait. Little ugly pounced upon it. It fell in a crumpled lump into the bright little wood fire and ceased to exist. I had totally forgotten it, said she with a blush which avenged my wounded self-love. Ironical pleasure at having seen the subject of her pencil I could not indulge myself in expressing as I did not care to enlighten little handsome. Any lurking peak was banished when Etty showed me with a smile the twilight view by the pond. Do you draw, she asked, and Flora cried, he makes caricatures of his friends with pen and ink. Let him deny it if he can. I was silent. End of From the Papers of Reginald Radcliffe, Esquire, Part 3 Recording by Adrien Levitsky End of Autumn Leaves Edited by Anna Wales Abbott