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Keeping a Secret

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 9.

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Keeping a Secret.

RUGGLES, an old cabinetmaker of Boston, told me that he used to make the artist Stuart's panels for him. They were made of mahogany, and as Stuart complained that he missed the rough surface of canvas that was favorable to the sparkle of his color, Ruggles invented the way of producing that sort of surface by cutting teeth in the plane-iron and dragging it backward, that proving the best way of indenting without tearing the wood. Ruggles said that at the time he used to work for Stuart his shop was on Winter Street, on the ground floor, and one day, sitting at his shop door, he saw Stuart coming down the street, in earnest conversation with a gentleman. Stuart came down into the shop followed by his friend; and, said Ruggles, "I saw that the gentleman was urging him to tell him something that he was unwilling to trust him with." Stuart said:—
"Mr. Ruggles, have you got a piece of chalk?"
I gave him a piece; he then turned to the other and said:—
"I know a secret; that stands for me," and made a mark thus, 1. "Now, you are my friend and would like to know my secret; you are a man of honor, and if I tell you it will do no harm, and, at any rate, it will gratify you as a mark of confidence, so I'll tell you;" and, making another mark, 1, "that stands for you, so there are two that know it. But you are a married man, and, as your wife is a discreet woman, and you never have any secrets between you, some day, when you are alone together and have nothing to talk about, you tell her you know something curious, but are afraid she will speak of it. She will be indignant at not being trusted, and insist that she ought to know; she promises that she never will whisper it to any one, and perhaps cries a little; so you tell her, and that stands for her;" he made another mark, 1. "Now how many people know it?"
"Three," said his friend.
"You are wrong. There are one hundred and eleven that know it—111," said Stuart.—Sel.