Chapter XI: THE SECRET TALKER.--"Be sure, now, you do not tell any one what I am

going to say to you," is a phrase that one talker often says to another: "Certainly not," is the ready rejoinder. So the secret is given in charge; and no sooner have the two friends parted than the entrusted fact or rumour is divulged, perhaps, to the very first person with whom he comes in conversation, told of course as a "secret never to be repeated." He had power to hear it, but not power to retain it. He is a _leaky_ vessel, a sieve-receiver, not able to keep anything put within him.

There is oftentimes deception, if not absolute lying, in this talker. Why does he receive the secret with the strong promise, "I will tell no one, upon my honour," if he cannot retain it in his own bosom?

Such persons are not to be trusted _twice_. As soon as you discover your facts given under covenant of secrecy are blabbed to others, you say, "I shall not trust him again:" and very properly too. Of course he tells as a secret what you tell him as a secret; but if he cannot retain it, how can he expect others? It is in this way that a matter, which in the first instance is spoken of under the most strict confidence, becomes a well-known fact, as though the public bellman had been hired to proclaim it in the streets.