' 'I
saw Someone yesterday,' said the beggar, 'with a mottled neckerchief,
like a sailor, who had come with a grain vessel to the next port;' and so
every rag and tag mauls me to suit his own evil purpose. Some call me
'Friend.' 'A friend told me,' saith one, 'that so and so does not intend
leaving a single farthing to his wife, and that there is no love lost
between them.' Others further disgrace me and call me a crow: 'a crow
tell me there is some trickery going on,' they say. Yea, some call me by
a more honoured name--Old Man, and yet not a half of the omens,
prophecies, and cures attributed to me are really mine. I never
counselled walking the old way if the new were better, and I never
intended forbidding men to church by saying: 'Frequent not the place
where thou art most welcome,' and a hundred such. But Someone is the
name generally given me, and most often heard of when anything uncommonly
bad happens; for if you ask one where that scandalous lie was told and
who told it. 'Indeed,' he will say, 'I know not, but Someone in the
company said it,' and if you enquire of all the company concerning the
story, all have heard it of Someone, but no one knows of whom.
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