"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" 



the safe delivery of which my fate depended. 

 By the time my plant reached my office twilight 

 had set in, and so nothing could be done until 

 the next morning. I was up betimes in the hope 

 of recovering as much as I could of that lost 

 day at the cost of a wear and tear, the recollection 

 of which I shall never lose. Happily, the sun 

 shone brightly during the show week, and the 

 turnstiles clicked more merrily than any one had 

 ever anticipated they would, and that always 

 covers a multitude of sins. Hence, as nothing 

 succeeds like success, everybody was in high 

 good humour and said the tide had turned for the 

 old Society. So the showman's reputation was 

 saved, and he had a fair start after all. 



But the incident illustrates how thin is the 

 partition that separates success from failure. 1 

 have forgotten much since then that I wish I 

 could remember, but that day's quest after a horse- 

 box will hold a foremost place in memory so 

 long as reason lasts. I only wonder that, after 

 such an experience, my hair retained its natural 

 colour. From childhood upwards I had always 

 understood that when people went through a 

 period of agonized horror the effect upon their 

 nerves resulted in rendering their head of hair 

 " as white as snow in Salmon." Yet I never 

 turned a hair in the direction of a change of 

 colouring, retaining my pristine vandyke-brown 

 hue till long afterwards ; in fact, until Father 

 Time took me gently by the forelock and brought 

 me to what I am by easy stages. I need hardly 

 say that now, when books and newspapers revive 

 this old tradition on circumstantial evidence, I 



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