“How can I go find 'em myself? Dis poor ole
game-legged darkie's friends must come to him. Oh,
whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie's, dat good
man wid de weed?”

At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along,
summoning all persons who had not got their tickets to
step to the captain's office; an announcement which
speedily thinned the throng about the black cripple,
who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight,
probably on much the same errand as the rest.

CHAPTER IV. RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUANTANCE.

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

“How do you do, Mr. Roberts?”

“Eh?”

“Don't you know me?”

“No, certainly.”

The crowd about the captain's office, having in good
time melted away, the above encounter took place in
one of the side balconies astern, between a man in
mourning clean and respectable, but none of the glossiest,
a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant before-mentioned,
whom, with the familiarity of an old
acquaintance, the former had accosted.

“Is it possible, my dear sir,” resumed he with the
weed, “that you do not recall my countenance? why
yours I recall distinctly as if but half an hour, instead of
half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't you
recall me, now? Look harder.”

“In my conscience—truly—I protest,” honestly
bewildered, “bless my soul, sir, I don't know you—
really, really. But stay, stay,” he hurriedly added, not
without gratification, glancing up at the crape on the
stranger's hat, “stay—yes—seems to me, though I have

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

not the pleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am
pretty sure I have at least heard of you, and recently
too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard here referred
to you, among others, for a character, I think.”

“Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow, I know him well.
They found me. I have said all I could for him. I think
I abated their distrust. Would I could have been of
more substantial service. And apropos, sir,” he added,
“now that it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the
circumstance of one man, however humble, referring for a
character to another man, however afflicted, does not
argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?”

The good merchant looked puzzled.

“Still you don't recall my countenance?”

“Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot,
despite my best efforts,” was the reluctantly-candid reply.

“Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who
am mistaken?—Are you not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding
merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania? Pray,
now, if you use the advertisement of business cards,
and happen to have one with you, just look at it, and see
whether you are not the man I take you for.”

“Why,” a bit chafed, perhaps, “I hope I know myself.”

“And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so
easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may
have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things
have happened.”

The good merchant stared.

“To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

some six years back, at Brade Brothers & Co.'s office, I
think. I was traveling for a Philadelphia house. The
senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some business-chat
followed, then you forced me home with you
to a family tea, and a family time we had. Have you
forgotten about the urn, and what I said about Werter's
Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that capital
story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since,
I have laughed over it. At least you must recall my
name—Ringman, John Ringman.”

“Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman?
Ring? Ring?”

“Ah sir,” sadly smiling, don't ring the changes that
way. I see you have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts.
But trust in the faithfulness of mine.”

“Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory
aint of the very best,” was the honest rejoinder. “But
still,” he perplexedly added, “still I—”

“Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that
we are all well acquainted.”

“But—but I don't like this going dead against my
own memory; I—”

“But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some
things this memory of yours is a little faithless? Now,
those who have faithless memories, should they not have
some little confidence in the less faithless memories of
others?”

“But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the
slightest—”

“I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray,

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

sir,” with a sudden illumination, “about six years back,
did it happen to you to receive any injury on the head?
Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause. Not
alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less
time immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise—
strange to add—oblivion, entire and incurable, as to
events embracing a longer or shorter period immediately
preceding it; that is, when the mind at the time
was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also
to register them in the memory, and did in fact so do;
but all in vain, for all was afterwards bruised out by
the injury.”

After the first start, the merchant listened with what
appeared more than ordinary interest. The other proceeded:

“In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay
insensible for a long time. Upon recovering, what a
blank! No faintest trace in regard to how I had come
near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, or
that it was a horse at all that had brought me to that
pass. For the knowledge of those particulars I am indebted
solely to my friends, in whose statements, I need
not say, I place implicit reliance, since particulars of
some sort there must have been, and why should they
deceive me? You see, sir, the mind is ductile, very
much so: but images, ductilely received into it, need a
certain time to harden and bake in their impressions,
otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an instant
obliterate them, as though they had never been. We
are but clay, sir, potter's clay, as the good book says,

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

clay, feeble, and too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize.
Tell me, was it your misfortune to receive
any concussion upon the brain about the period I speak
of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your
memory by more minutely rehearsing the circumstances
of our acquaintance.”

The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had
not relaxed as the other proceeded. After some hesitation,
indeed, something more than hesitation, he confessed
that, though he had never received any injury of
the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had
in fact been taken with a brain fever, losing his mind
completely for a considerable interval. He was continuing,
when the stranger with much animation exclaimed:

“There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken.
That brain fever accounts for it all.”

“Nay; but—”

“Pardon me, Mr. Roberts,” respectfully interrupting
him, “but time is short, and I have something private
and particular to say to you. Allow me.”

Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the
two having silently walked to a less public spot, the manner
of the man with the weed suddenly assumed a seriousness
almost painful. What might be called a writhing
expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with
some disastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two
attempts to speak, but words seemed to choke him.
His companion stood in humane surprise, wondering
what was to come. At length, with an effort

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

mastering his feelings, in a tolerably composed tone he
spoke:

“If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?”

“Yes, yes.”

Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return
of agitation, the stranger grasped the other's hand;
“and would you not loan a brother a shilling if he
needed it?”

The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat.

“Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those
business men, who make a business of never having to
do with unfortunates. For God's sake don't leave me.
I have something on my heart—on my heart. Under
deplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter
strangers. I want a friend in whom I may confide.
Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the first known face I've
seen for many weeks.”

It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered
such a contrast to the scene around, that the merchant,
though not used to be very indiscreet, yet, being not
entirely inhumane, remained not entirely unmoved.

The other, still tremulous, resumed:

“I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to
follow up a social salutation with such words as have
just been mine. I know that I jeopardize your good opinion.
But I can't help it: necessity knows no law, and
heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside;
I will tell you my story.”

In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

from his auditor's expression, it seemed to be a tale of
singular interest, involving calamities against which no
integrity, no forethought, no energy, no genius, no piety,
could guard.

At every disclosure, the hearer's commiseration increased.
No sentimental pity. As the story went on,
he drew from his wallet a bank note, but after a while,
at some still more unhappy revelation, changed it for
another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which,
when the story was concluded, with an air studiously
disclamatory of alms-giving, he put into the stranger's
hands; who, on his side, with an air studiously disclamatory
of alms-taking, put it into his pocket.

Assistance being received, the stranger's manner assumed
a kind and degree of decorum which, under the
circumstances, seemed almost coldness. After some words,
not over ardent, and yet not exactly inappropriate, he
took leave, making a bow which had one knows not
what of a certain chastened independence about it; as
if misery, however burdensome, could not break down
self-respect, nor gratitude, however deep, humiliate a
gentleman.

He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if
thinking; then with hastened steps returning to the
merchant, “I am just reminded that the president, who
is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company,
happens to be on board here, and, having been subpœ
naed as witness in a stock case on the docket in Kentucky,
has his transfer-book with him. A month since,
in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the
alarmists, the Company, previously advised of their
scheme, so managed it as to get into its own hands those
sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a spurious panic
must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it.
The Company, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to
redispose of those shares; and having obtained them at
their depressed value, will now sell them at par, though,
prior to the panic, they were held at a handsome figure
above. That the readiness of the Company to do this
is not generally known, is shown by the fact that the
stock still stands on the transfer-book in the Company's
name, offering to one in funds a rare chance for investment.
For, the panic subsiding more and more every
day, it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence
will be more than restored; there will be a reaction;
from the stock's descent its rise will be higher than from
no fall, the holders trusting themselves to fear no second
fate.”

Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with
interest, the merchant replied to the effect, that some
time since, through friends concerned with it, he had
heard of the company, and heard well of it, but was ignorant
that there had latterly been fluctuations. He added
that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided
having to do with stocks of any sort, but in the present
case he really felt something like being tempted. “Pray,”
in conclusion, “do you think that upon a pinch anything
could be transacted on board here with the transfer-agent?
Are you acquainted with him?”

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

“Not personally. I but happened to hear that he
was a passenger. For the rest, though it might be
somewhat informal, the gentleman might not object to
doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi,
you know, business is not so ceremonious as at the
East.”

“True,” returned the merchant, and looked down a
moment in thought, then, raising his head quickly, said,
in a tone not so benign as his wonted one, “This would
seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first hearing it,
did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!”

“I?—would it had been possible!”

Not without some emotion was this said, and not
without some embarrassment was the reply. “Ah, yes,
I had forgotten.”

Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity,
not a little disconcerting; the more so, as there was
in it what seemed the aspect not alone of the superior,
but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of bearing, in
a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely
enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether
unbecomingly upon the beneficiary, being free
from anything like the appearance of assumption, and
mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as
though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to
himself swayed him. At length he spoke:

“To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not
availing himself of an opportunity for pecuniary investment—
but, no, no; it was forgetfulness; and this,
charity will impute to some lingering effect of that

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating
yet further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still
more seriously.”

“As to that,” said the merchant, rallying, “I am
not—”

“Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an
unpleasant distrust, however vague, was yours. Ah,
shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing is suspicion,
which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and
wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling
your attention to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment
of your goodness. I but seek to be grateful;
if my information leads to nothing, you must remember
the motive.”

He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts
not wholly without self-reproach, for having momentarily
indulged injurious thoughts against one who, it was
evident, was possessed of a self-respect which forbade
his indulging them himself.

CHAPTER V. THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREAT SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON.

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

“Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness
too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more
than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poor beating heart!”

It was the man with the weed, not very long after
quitting the merchant, murmuring to himself with his
hand to his side like one with the heart-disease.

Meditation over kindness received seemed to have
softened him something, too, it may be, beyond what
might, perhaps, have been looked for from one whose
unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act
of being aided, might have appeared to some not wholly
unlike pride out of place; and pride, in any place, is
seldom very feeling. But the truth, perhaps, is, that
those who are least touched with that vice, besides being
not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the
ones whom a ruling sense of propriety makes appear
cold, if not thankless, under a favor. For, at such a
time, to be full of warm, earnest words, and heart-felt
protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people
dislike few things more than that; which would

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

seem to look as if the world did not relish earnestness;
but, not so; because the world, being earnest itself, likes
an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well, but
only in their place—the stage. See what sad work they
make of it, who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish
enthusiasm and with Irish sincerity, to a benefactor,
who, if a man of sense and respectability, as well as
kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it;
and, if of a nervously fastidious nature, as some are,
may be led to think almost as much less favorably of
the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude, as if he had
been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an indiscretion.
But, beneficiaries who know better, though they
may feel as much, if not more, neither inflict such pain,
nor are inclined to run any risk of so doing. And these,
being wise, are the majority. By which one sees how
inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence
of its officious manifestations in the world, complain that
there is not much gratitude extant; when the truth is,
that there is as much of it as there is of modesty; but,
both being for the most part votarists of the shade, for
the most part keep out of sight.

What started this was, to account, if necessary, for
the changed air of the man with the weed, who, throwing
off in private the cold garb of decorum, and so giving
warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almost
transformed into another being. This subdued air of
softness, too, was toned with melancholy, melancholy
unreserved; a thing which, however at variance with
propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; for

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

one knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that,
where earnestness is, there, also, is melancholy.

At the time, he was leaning over the rail at the boat's
side, in his pensiveness, unmindful of another pensive
figure near—a young gentleman with a swan-neck,
wearing a lady-like open shirt collar, thrown back, and
tied with a black ribbon. From a square, tableted
broach, curiously engraved with Greek characters, he
seemed a collegian—not improbably, a sophomore—on
his travels; possibly, his first. A small book bound in
Roman vellum was in his hand.

Overhearing his murmuring neighbor, the youth
regarded him with some surprise, not to say interest.
But, singularly for a collegian, being apparently of a
retiring nature, he did not speak; when the other still
more increased his diffidence by changing from soliloquy
to colloquy, in a manner strangely mixed of familiarity
and pathos.

“Ah, who is this? You did not hear me, my young
friend, did you? Why, you, too, look sad. My melancholy
is not catching!”

“Sir, sir,” stammered the other.

“Pray, now,” with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness,
slowly sliding along the rail, “Pray, now, my young
friend, what volume have you there? Give me leave,”
gently drawing it from him. “Tacitus!” Then opening
it at random, read: “In general a black and shameful
period lies before me.” “Dear young sir,” touching
his arm alarmedly, “don't read this book. It is poison,
moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus,

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

such truth would have the operation of falsity, and so
still be poison, moral poison. Too well I know this
Tacitus. In my college-days he came near souring me
into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar,
and go about with a disdainfully joyless expression.”

“Sir, sir, I—I—”

“Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think
that Tacitus, like me, is only melancholy; but he's more—
he's ugly. A vast difference, young sir, between the
melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the
world still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be
compatible with benevolence, the other not. The one
may deepen insight, the other shallows it. Drop Tacitus.
Phrenologically, my young friend, you would
seem to have a well-developed head, and large; but
cribbed within the ugly view, the Tacitus view, your
large brain, like your large ox in the contracted field,
will but starve the more. And don't dream, as some of
you students may, that, by taking this same ugly view,
the deeper meanings of the deeper books will so alone
become revealed to you. Drop Tacitus. His subtlety
is falsity. To him, in his double-refined anatomy of
human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying—
`There is a subtle man, and the same is deceived.' Drop
Tacitus. Come, now, let me throw the book overboard.”

“Sir, I—I—”

“Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and
that is just what I am speaking to. Yes, learn from me
that, though the sorrows of the world are great, its

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

wickedness—that is, its ugliness—is small. Much cause
to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known
adversity, and know it still. But for that, do I turn
cynic? No, no: it is small beer that sours. To my
fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I
may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in
my kind. Now, then” (winningly), “this book—will
you let me drown it for you?”

“Really, sir—I—”

“I see, I see. But of course you read Tacitus in order
to aid you in understanding human nature—as if truth
was ever got at by libel. My young friend, if to know
human nature is your object, drop Tacitus and go north
to the cemeteries of Auburn and Greenwood.”

“Upon my word, I—I—”

“Nay, I foresee all that. But you carry Tacitus,
that shallow Tacitus. What do I carry? See”—producing
a pocket-volume—“Akenside—his `Pleasures
of Imagination.' One of these days you will know it.
Whatever our lot, we should read serene and cheery
books, fitted to inspire love and trust. But Tacitus! I
have long been of opinion that these classics are the bane
of colleges; for—not to hint of the immorality of Ovid,
Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology
of Eschylus and others—where will one find views
so injurious to human nature as in Thucydides, Juvenal,
Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus? When I consider
that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics
have been the favorites of successive generations of students
and studious men, I tremble to think of that mass

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

of unsuspected heresy on every vital topic which for
centuries must have simmered unsurmised in the heart
of Christendom. But Tacitus—he is the most extraordinary
example of a heretic; not one iota of confidence in
his kind. What a mockery that such an one should be
reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed the statesman's
manual! But Tacitus—I hate Tacitus; not,
though, I trust, with the hate that sins, but a righteous
hate. Without confidence himself, Tacitus destroys it
in all his readers. Destroys confidence, paternal confidence,
of which God knows that there is in this world
none to spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you
are, my dear young friend, did you never observe how
little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between
man and man—more particularly between stranger and
stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence!
I have sometimes almost thought that confidence
is fled; that confidence is the New Astrea—emigrated—
vanished—gone.” Then softly sliding nearer,
with the softest air, quivering down and looking up,
“could you now, my dear young sir, under such circumstances,
by way of experiment, simply have confidence
in me?”

From the outset, the sophomore, as has been seen,
had struggled with an ever-increasing embarrassment,
arising, perhaps, from such strange remarks coming from
a stranger—such persistent and prolonged remarks, too.
In vain had he more than once sought to break the
spell by venturing a deprecatory or leave-taking word.
In vain. Somehow, the stranger fascinated him. Little

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

wonder, then, that, when the appeal came, he could
hardly speak, but, as before intimated, being apparently
of a retiring nature, abruptly retired from the spot, leaving
the chagrined stranger to wander away in the opposite
direction.

CHAPTER VI. AT THE OUTSET OF WHICH CERTAIN PASSENGERS PROVE DEAF TO THE CALL OF CHARITY.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

—“You—pish! Why will the captain suffer these
begging fellows on board?”

These pettish words were breathed by a well-to-do
gentleman in a ruby-colored velvet vest, and with a ruby-colored
cheek, a ruby-headed cane in his hand, to a man in
a gray coat and white tie, who, shortly after the interview
last described, had accosted him for contributions to a
Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the
Seminoles. Upon a cursory view, this last person might
have seemed, like the man with the weed, one of the less
unrefined children of misfortune; but, on a closer observation,
his countenance revealed little of sorrow, though
much of sanctity.

With added words of touchy disgust, the well-to-do
gentleman hurried away. But, though repulsed, and
rudely, the man in gray did not reproach, for a time
patiently remaining in the chilly loneliness to which he
had been left, his countenance, however, not without
token of latent though chastened reliance.

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

At length an old gentleman, somewhat bulky, drew
nigh, and from him also a contribution was sought.

“Look, you,” coming to a dead halt, and scowling
upon him. “Look, you,” swelling his bulk out before
him like a swaying balloon, “look, you, you on others'
behalf ask for money; you, a fellow with a face as long
as my arm. Hark ye, now: there is such a thing as
gravity, and in condemned felons it may be genuine;
but of long faces there are three sorts; that of grief's
drudge, that of the lantern-jawed man, and that of the
impostor. You know best which yours is.”

“Heaven give you more charity, sir.”

“And you less hypocrisy, sir.”

With which words, the hard-hearted old gentleman
marched off.

While the other still stood forlorn, the young clergyman,
before introduced, passing that way, catching a
chance sight of him, seemed suddenly struck by some
recollection; and, after a moment's pause, hurried up
with: “Your pardon, but shortly since I was all over
looking for you.”

“For me?” as marveling that one of so little account
should be sought for.

“Yes, for you; do you know anything about the
negro, apparently a cripple, aboard here? Is he, or is
he not, what he seems to be?”

“Ah, poor Guinea! have you, too, been distrusted?
you, upon whom nature has placarded the evidence of
your claims?”

“Then you do really know him, and he is quite

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

worthy? It relieves me to hear it—much relieves me.
Come, let us go find him, and see what can be done.”

“Another instance that confidence may come too
late. I am sorry to say that at the last landing I myself—
just happening to catch sight of him on the gangway-plank—
assisted the cripple ashore. No time to
talk, only to help. He may not have told you, but he
has a brother in that vicinity.”

“Really, I regret his going without my seeing him
again; regret it, more, perhaps, than you can readily think.
You see, shortly after leaving St. Louis, he was on the
forecastle, and there, with many others, I saw him, and
put trust in him; so much so, that, to convince those
who did not, I, at his entreaty, went in search of you,
you being one of several individuals he mentioned, and
whose personal appearance he more or less described,
individuals who he said would willingly speak for him.
But, after diligent search, not finding you, and catching
no glimpse of any of the others he had enumerated,
doubts were at last suggested; but doubts indirectly
originating, as I can but think, from prior distrust unfeelingly
proclaimed by another. Still, certain it is, I
began to suspect.”

“Ha, ha, ha!”

A sort of laugh more like a groan than a laugh; and
yet, somehow, it seemed intended for a laugh.

Both turned, and the young clergyman started at
seeing the wooden-legged man close behind him, morosely
grave as a criminal judge with a mustard-plaster
on his back. In the present case the mustard-plaster

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

might have been the memory of certain recent biting
rebuffs and mortifications.

“Wouldn't think it was I who laughed, would you?”

“But who was it you laughed at? or rather, tried to
laugh at?” demanded the young clergyman, flushing,
“me?”

“Neither you nor any one within a thousand miles
of you. But perhaps you don't believe it.”

“If he were of a suspicious temper, he might not,”
interposed the man in gray calmly, “it is one of the
imbecilities of the suspicious person to fancy that every
stranger, however absent-minded, he sees so much as
smiling or gesturing to himself in any odd sort of way,
is secretly making him his butt. In some moods, the
movements of an entire street, as the suspicious man
walks down it, will seem an express pantomimic jeer at
him. In short, the suspicious man kicks himself with
his own foot.”

“Whoever can do that, ten to one he saves other
folks' sole-leather,” said the wooden-legged man with a
crusty attempt at humor. But with augmented grin
and squirm, turning directly upon the young clergyman,
“you still think it was you I was laughing at, just now.
To prove your mistake, I will tell you what I was
laughing at; a story I happened to call to mind just
then.”

Whereupon, in his porcupine way, and with sarcastic
details, unpleasant to repeat, he related a story, which
might, perhaps, in a good-natured version, be rendered
as follows:

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

A certain Frenchman of New Orleans, an old man,
less slender in purse than limb, happening to attend
the theatre one evening, was so charmed with the
character of a faithful wife, as there represented to
the life, that nothing would do but he must marry upon
it. So, marry he did, a beautiful girl from Tennessee, who
had first attracted his attention by her liberal mould,
and was subsequently recommended to him through her
kin, for her equally liberal education and disposition.
Though large, the praise proved not too much. For,
ere long, rumor more than corroborated it, by whispering
that the lady was liberal to a fault. But though various
circumstances, which by most Benedicts would have
been deemed all but conclusive, were duly recited to the
old Frenchman by his friends, yet such was his confidence
that not a syllable would he credit, till, chancing
one night to return unexpectedly from a journey, upon
entering his apartment, a stranger burst from the alcove:
“Begar!” cried he, “now I begin to suspec.”

His story told, the wooden-legged man threw back
his head, and gave vent to a long, gasping, rasping sort
of taunting cry, intolerable as that of a high-pressure
engine jeering off steam; and that done, with apparent
satisfaction hobbled away.

“Who is that scoffer,” said the man in gray, not without
warmth. “Who is he, who even were truth on his
tongue, his way of speaking it would make truth almost
offensive as falsehood. Who is he?”

“He who I mentioned to you as having boasted his
suspicion of the negro,” replied the young clergyman,

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

recovering from disturbance, “in short, the person
to whom I ascribe the origin of my own distrust; he
maintained that Guinea was some white scoundrel, betwisted
and painted up for a decoy. Yes, these were
his very words, I think.”

“Impossible! he could not be so wrong-headed.
Pray, will you call him back, and let me ask him if he
were really in earnest?”

The other complied; and, at length, after no few surly
objections, prevailed upon the one-legged individual to
return for a moment. Upon which, the man in gray
thus addressed him: “This reverend gentleman tells
me, sir, that a certain cripple, a poor negro, is by you
considered an ingenious impostor. Now, I am not unaware
that there are some persons in this world, who,
unable to give better proof of being wise, take a strange
delight in showing what they think they have sagaciously
read in mankind by uncharitable suspicions
of them. I hope you are not one of these. In short,
would you tell me now, whether you were not merely
joking in the notion you threw out about the negro.
Would you be so kind?”

“No, I won't be so kind, I'll be so cruel.”

“As you please about that.”

“Well, he's just what I said he was.”

“A white masquerading as a black?”

“Exactly.”

The man in gray glanced at the young clergyman a
moment, then quietly whispered to him, “I thought you
represented your friend here as a very distrustful sort of

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

person, but he appears endued with a singular credulity.—
Tell me, sir, do you really think that a white could
look the negro so? For one, I should call it pretty good
acting.”

“Not much better than any other man acts.”

“How? Does all the world act? Am I, for instance,
an actor? Is my reverend friend here, too, a performer?”

“Yes, don't you both perform acts? To do, is to act;
so all doers are actors.”

“You trifle.—I ask again, if a white, how could he
look the negro so?”

“Never saw the negro-minstrels, I suppose?”

“Yes, but they are apt to overdo the ebony; exemplifying
the old saying, not more just than charitable, that
`the devil is never so black as he is painted.' But his
limbs, if not a cripple, how could he twist his limbs so?”

“How do other hypocritical beggars twist theirs?
Easy enough to see how they are hoisted up.”

“The sham is evident, then?”

“To the discerning eye,” with a horrible screw of his
gimlet one.

“Well, where is Guinea?” said the man in gray;
“where is he? Let us at once find him, and refute beyond
cavil this injurious hypothesis.”

“Do so,” cried the one-eyed man, “I'm just in the
humor now for having him found, and leaving the streaks
of these fingers on his paint, as the lion leaves the
streaks of his nails on a Caffre. They wouldn't let me
touch him before. Yes, find him, I'll make wool fly,
and him after.”

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

“You forget,” here said the young clergyman to the
man in gray, “that yourself helped poor Guinea ashore.”

“So I did, so I did; how unfortunate. But look
now,” to the other, “I think that without personal proof
I can convince you of your mistake. For I put it to
you, is it reasonable to suppose that a man with brains,
sufficient to act such a part as you say, would take all
that trouble, and run all that hazard, for the mere sake
of those few paltry coppers, which, I hear, was all he
got for his pains, if pains they were?”

“That puts the case irrefutably,” said the young
clergyman, with a challenging glance towards the one-legged
man.

“You two green-horns! Money, you think, is the sole
motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in
this world. How much money did the devil make by
gulling Eve?”

Whereupon he hobbled off again with a repetition of
his intolerable jeer.

The man in gray stood silently eying his retreat a
while, and then, turning to his companion, said: “A
bad man, a dangerous man; a man to be put down in
any Christian community.—And this was he who was
the means of begetting your distrust? Ah, we should
shut our ears to distrust, and keep them open only for its
opposite.”

“You advance a principle, which, if I had acted upon
it this morning, I should have spared myself what I now
feel.—That but one man, and he with one leg, should
have such ill power given him; his one sour word

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

leavening into congenial sourness (as, to my knowledge,
it did) the dispositions, before sweet enough, of a numerous
company. But, as I hinted, with me at the time
his ill words went for nothing; the same as now; only
afterwards they had effect; and I confess, this puzzles
me.”

“It should not. With humane minds, the spirit of
distrust works something as certain potions do; it is a
spirit which may enter such minds, and yet, for a time,
longer or shorter, lie in them quiescent; but only the
more deplorable its ultimate activity.”

“An uncomfortable solution; for, since that baneful
man did but just now anew drop on me his bane, how
shall I be sure that my present exemption from its effects
will be lasting?”

“You cannot be sure, but you can strive against it.”

“How?”

“By strangling the least symptom of distrust, of any
sort, which hereafter, upon whatever provocation, may
arise in you.”

“I will do so.” Then added as in soliloquy, “Indeed,
indeed, I was to blame in standing passive under such
influences as that one-legged man's. My conscience upbraids
me.—The poor negro: You see him occasionally,
perhaps?”

“No, not often; though in a few days, as it happens,
my engagements will call me to the neighborhood of his
present retreat; and, no doubt, honest Guinea, who is a
grateful soul, will come to see me there.”

“Then you have been his benefactor?”

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

“His benefactor? I did not say that. I have known
him.”

“Take this mite. Hand it to Guinea when you see
him; say it comes from one who has full belief in his
honesty, and is sincerely sorry for having indulged, however
transiently, in a contrary thought.”

“I accept the trust. And, by-the-way, since you are
of this truly charitable nature, you will not turn away
an appeal in behalf of the Seminole Widow and Orphan
Asylum?”

“I have not heard of that charity.”

“But recently founded.”

After a pause, the clergyman was irresolutely putting
his hand in his pocket, when, caught by something in his
companion's expression, he eyed him inquisitively, almost
uneasily.

“Ah, well,” smiled the other wanly, “if that subtle
bane, we were speaking of but just now, is so soon beginning
to work, in vain my appeal to you. Good-by.”

“Nay,” not untouched, “you do me injustice; instead
of indulging present suspicions, I had rather make
amends for previous ones. Here is something for your
asylum. Not much; but every drop helps. Of course
you have papers?”

“Of course,” producing a memorandum book and
pencil. “Let me take down name and amount. We
publish these names. And now let me give you a little
history of our asylum, and the providential way in
which it was started.”

CHAPTER VII. A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS.

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

At an interesting point of the narration, and at the
moment when, with much curiosity, indeed, urgency, the
narrator was being particularly questioned upon that
point, he was, as it happened, altogether diverted both
from it and his story, by just then catching sight of a
gentleman who had been standing in sight from the beginning,
but, until now, as it seemed, without being
observed by him.

“Pardon me,” said he, rising, “but yonder is one
who I know will contribute, and largely. Don't take
it amiss if I quit you.”

“Go: duty before all things,” was the conscientious
reply.

The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect.
There he stood apart and in repose, and yet, by his mere
look, lured the man in gray from his story, much as, by
its graciousness of bearing, some full-leaved elm, alone
in a meadow, lures the noon sickleman to throw down
his sheaves, and come and apply for the alms of its
shade.

But, considering that goodness is no such rare thing

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

among men—the world familiarly know the noun; a
common one in every language—it was curious that
what so signalized the stranger, and made him look like
a kind of foreigner, among the crowd (as to some it
make him appear more or less unreal in this portraiture),
was but the expression of so prevailent a quality. Such
goodness seemed his, allied with such fortune, that, so
far as his own personal experience could have gone,
scarcely could he have known ill, physical or moral;
and as for knowing or suspecting the latter in any serious
degree (supposing such degree of it to be), by observation
or philosophy; for that, probably, his nature, by
its opposition, imperfectly qualified, or from it wholly
exempted. For the rest, he might have been five and
fifty, perhaps sixty, but tall, rosy, between plump and
portly, with a primy, palmy air, and for the time and
place, not to hint of his years, dressed with a strangely
festive finish and elegance. The inner-side of his coat-skirts
was of white satin, which might have looked
especially inappropriate, had it not seemed less a bit
of mere tailoring than something of an emblem, as it
were; an involuntary emblem, let us say, that what
seemed so good about him was not all outside; no, the
fine covering had a still finer lining. Upon one hand he
wore a white kid glove, but the other hand, which was
ungloved, looked hardly less white. Now, as the Fidèle,
like most steamboats, was upon deck a little soot-streaked
here and there, especially about the railings, it was a
marvel how, under such circumstances, these hands retained
their spotlessness. But, if you watched them

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

a while, you noticed that they avoided touching anything;
you noticed, in short, that a certain negro body-servant,
whose hands nature had dyed black, perhaps with the
same purpose that millers wear white, this negro servant's
hands did most of his master's handling for him;
having to do with dirt on his account, but not to his
prejudices. But if, with the same undefiledness of consequences
to himself, a gentleman could also sin by
deputy, how shocking would that be! But it is not
permitted to be; and even if it were, no judicious moralist
would make proclamation of it.

This gentleman, therefore, there is reason to affirm,
was one who, like the Hebrew governor, knew how to
keep his hands clean, and who never in his life happened
to be run suddenly against by hurrying house-painter,
or sweep; in a word, one whose very good luck it was
to be a very good man.

Not that he looked as if he were a kind of Wilberforce
at all; that superior merit, probably, was not his; nothing
in his manner bespoke him righteous, but only
good, and though to be good is much below being righteous,
and though there is a difference between the two,
yet not, it is to be hoped, so incompatible as that a
righteous man can not be a good man; though, conversely,
in the pulpit it has been with much cogency urged,
that a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his
nature, is so far from there by being righteous, that
nothing short of a total change and conversion can make
him so; which is something which no honest mind,
well read in the history of righteousness, will care to

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

deny; nevertheless, since St. Paul himself, agreeing in a
sense with the pulpit distinction, though not altogether
in the pulpit deduction, and also pretty plainly intimating
which of the two qualities in question enjoys his
apostolic preference; I say, since St. Paul has so meaningly
said, that, “scarcely for a righteous man will
one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would
even dare to die;” therefore, when we repeat of this
gentleman, that he was only a good man, whatever
else by severe censors may be objected to him, it is
still to be hoped that his goodness will not at least
be considered criminal in him. At all events, no man,
not even a righteous man, would think it quite right to
commit this gentleman to prison for the crime, extraordinary
as he might deem it; more especially, as, until
everything could be known, there would be some chance
that the gentleman might after all be quite as innocent
of it as he himself.

It was pleasant to mark the good man's reception of
the salute of the righteous man, that is, the man in
gray; his inferior, apparently, not more in the social
scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, the
good man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness
over that suitor, not in conceited condescension, but
with that even amenity of true majesty, which can be
kind to any one without stooping to it.

To the plea in behalf of the Seminole widows and
orphans, the gentleman, after a question or two duly
answered, responded by producing an ample pocket-book
in the good old capacious style, of fine green

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

French morocco and workmanship, bound with silk of
the same color, not to omit bills crisp with newness,
fresh from the bank, no muckworms' grime upon them.
Lucre those bills might be, but as yet having been kept
unspotted from the world, not of the filthy sort. Placing
now three of those virgin bills in the applicant's
hands, he hoped that the smallness of the contribution
would be pardoned; to tell the truth, and this at last
accounted for his toilet, he was bound but a short run
down the river, to attend, in a festive grove, the afternoon
wedding of his niece: so did not carry much money
with him.

The other was about expressing his thanks when the
gentleman in his pleasant way checked him: the gratitude
was on the other side. To him, he said, charity
was in one sense not an effort, but a luxury; against too
great indulgence in which his steward, a humorist, had
sometimes admonished him.

In some general talk which followed, relative to organized
modes of doing good, the gentleman expressed
his regrets that so many benevolent societies as there
were, here and there isolated in the land, should not act
in concert by coming together, in the way that already
in each society the individuals composing it had done,
which would result, he thought, in like advantages upon
a larger scale. Indeed, such a confederation might, perhaps,
be attended with as happy results as politically
attended that of the states.

Upon his hitherto moderate enough companion, this
suggestion had an effect illustrative in a sort of that

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

notion of Socrates, that the soul is a harmony; for as the
sound of a flute, in any particular key, will, it is said, audibly
affect the corresponding chord of any harp in good
tune, within hearing, just so now did some string in him
respond, and with animation.

Which animation, by the way, might seem more or
less out of character in the man in gray, considering his
unsprightly manner when first introduced, had he not
already, in certain after colloquies, given proof, in some
degree, of the fact, that, with certain natures, a soberly
continent air at times, so far from arguing emptiness of
stuff, is good proof it is there, and plenty of it, because
unwasted, and may be used the more effectively, too,
when opportunity offers. What now follows on the
part of the man in gray will still further exemplify, perhaps
somewhat strikingly, the truth, or what appears
to be such, of this remark.

“Sir,” said he eagerly, “I am before you. A project,
not dissimilar to yours, was by me thrown out at the
World's Fair in London.”

“World's Fair? You there? Pray how was that?”

“First, let me—”

“Nay, but first tell me what took you to the Fair?”

“I went to exhibit an invalid's easy-chair I had invented.”

“Then you have not always been in the charity business?”

“Is it not charity to ease human suffering? I am,
and always have been, as I always will be, I trust, in
the charity business, as you call it; but charity is not

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

like a pin, one to make the head, and the other the
point; charity is a work to which a good workman may
be competent in all its branches. I invented my Protean
easy-chair in odd intervals stolen from meals and
sleep.”

“You call it the Protean easy-chair; pray describe
it.”

“My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed,
behinged, and bepadded, everyway so elastic,
springy, and docile to the airiest touch, that in some one
of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back,
seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the
body most racked, nay, I had almost added the most
tormented conscience must, somehow and somewhere,
find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity
to make known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped
together my little means and off to the World's Fair
with it.”

“You did right. But your scheme; how did you
come to hit upon that?”

“I was going to tell you. After seeing my invention
duly catalogued and placed, I gave myself up to pondering
the scene about me. As I dwelt upon that shining
pageant of arts, and moving concourse of nations, and reflected
that here was the pride of the world glorying in
a glass house, a sense of the fragility of worldly grandeur
profoundly impressed me. And I said to myself,
I will see if this occasion of vanity cannot supply a hint
toward a better profit than was designed. Let some
world-wide good to the world-wide cause be now done.

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

In short, inspired by the scene, on the fourth day I issued
at the World's Fair my prospectus of the World's
Charity.”

“Quite a thought. But, pray explain it.”

“The World's Charity is to be a society whose members
shall comprise deputies from every charity and mission
extant; the one object of the society to be the methodization
of the world's benevolence; to which end,
the present system of voluntary and promiscuous contribution
to be done away, and the Society to be
empowered by the various governments to levy, annually,
one grand benevolence tax upon all mankind; as
in Augustus Cæsar's time, the whole world to come up
to be taxed; a tax which, for the scheme of it, should
be something like the income-tax in England, a tax, also,
as before hinted, to be a consolidation-tax of all possible
benevolence taxes; as in America here, the state-tax,
and the county-tax, and the town-tax, and the
poll-tax, are by the assessors rolled into one. This tax,
according to my tables, calculated with care, would result
in the yearly raising of a fund little short of eight
hundred millions; this fund to be annually applied to
such objects, and in such modes, as the various charities
and missions, in general congress represented, might
decree; whereby, in fourteen years, as I estimate, there
would have been devoted to good works the sum of
eleven thousand two hundred millions; which would
warrant the dissolution of the society, as that fund judiciously
expended, not a pauper or heathen could remain
the round world over.”

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

“Eleven thousand two hundred millions! And all
by passing round a hat, as it were.”

“Yes, I am no Fourier, the projector of an impossible
scheme, but a philanthropist and a financier setting forth
a philanthropy and a finance which are practicable.”

“Practicable?”

“Yes. Eleven thousand two hundred millions; it
will frighten none but a retail philanthropist. What is
it but eight hundred millions for each of fourteen years?
Now eight hundred millions—what is that, to average
it, but one little dollar a head for the population of the
planet? And who will refuse, what Turk or Dyak
even, his own little dollar for sweet charity's sake?
Eight hundred millions! More than that sum is yearly
expended by mankind, not only in vanities, but miseries.
Consider that bloody spendthrift, War. And are
mankind so stupid, so wicked, that, upon the demonstration
of these things they will not, amending their ways,
devote their superfluities to blessing the world instead
of cursing it? Eight hundred millions! They have
not to make it, it is theirs already; they have but to
direct it from ill to good. And to this, scarce a self-denial
is demanded. Actually, they would not in the
mass be one farthing the poorer for it; as certainly would
they be all the better and happier. Don't you see?
But admit, as you must, that mankind is not mad, and
my project is practicable. For, what creature but a
madman would not rather do good than ill, when it is
plain that, good or ill, it must return upon himself?”

“Your sort of reasoning,” said the good gentleman,

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

adjusting his gold sleeve-buttons, “seems all reasonable
enough, but with mankind it wont do.”

“Then mankind are not reasoning beings, if reason
wont do with them.”

“That is not to the purpose. By-the-way, from the
manner in which you alluded to the world's census, it
would appear that, according to your world-wide scheme,
the pauper not less than the nabob is to contribute to
the relief of pauperism, and the heathen not less than
the Christian to the conversion of heathenism. How is
that?”

“Why, that—pardon me—is quibbling. Now, no
philanthropist likes to be opposed with quibbling.”

“Well, I won't quibble any more. But, after all, if
I understand your project, there is little specially new
in it, further than the magnifying of means now in
operation.”

“Magnifying and energizing. For one thing, missions
I would thoroughly reform. Missions I would
quicken with the Wall street spirit.”

“The Wall street spirit?”

“Yes; for if, confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to
be gained but through the auxiliary agency of worldly
means, then, to the surer gaining of such spiritual ends,
the example of worldly policy in worldly projects should
not by spiritual projectors be slighted. In brief, the
conversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending
on human effort, would, by the world's charity, be let
out on contract. So much by bid for converting India,
so much for Borneo, so much for Africa. Competition

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be no
lethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house
or tract-house of which slanderers could, with any
plausibility, say that it had degenerated in its clerkships
into a sort of custom-house. But the main point is the
Archimedean money-power that would be brought to
bear.”

“You mean the eight hundred million power?”

“Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by
driblets amounts to just nothing. I am for doing good
to the world with a will. I am for doing good to the
world once for all and having done with it. Do but
think, my dear sir, of the eddies and maëlstroms of
pagans in China. People here have no conception of
it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper pagans
are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas
in a bin of peas. To be an immortal being in China is
no more distinction than to be a snow-flake in a snow-squall.
What are a score or two of missionaries to
such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am
for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and
converting the Chinese en masse within six months of
the debarkation. The thing is then done, and turn to
something else.”

“I fear you are too enthusiastic.”

“A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for
without enthusiasm what was ever achieved but commonplace?
But again: consider the poor in London.
To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf
there? I am for voting to them twenty thousand

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

bullocks and one hundred thousand barrels of flour to begin
with. They are then comforted, and no more hunger
for one while among the poor of London. And so all
round.”

“Sharing the character of your general project, these
things, I take it, are rather examples of wonders that
were to be wished, than wonders that will happen.”

“And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world
too old? Is it barren? Think of Sarah.”

“Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a
smile). But still, as to your design at large, there
seems a certain audacity.”

“But if to the audacity of the design there be brought
a commensurate circumspectness of execution, how
then?”

“Why, do you really believe that your world's
charity will ever go into operation?”

“I have confidence that it will.”

“But may you not be over-confident?”

“For a Christian to talk so!”

“But think of the obstacles!”

“Obstacles? I have confidence to remove obstacles,
though mountains. Yes, confidence in the world's
charity to that degree, that, as no better person offers to
supply the place, I have nominated myself provisional
treasurer, and will be happy to receive subscriptions, for
the present to be devoted to striking off a million more
of my prospectuses.”

The talk went on; the man in gray revealed a spirit
of benevolence which, mindful of the millennial promise,

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

had gone abroad over all the countries of the globe,
much as the diligent spirit of the husbandman, stirred
by forethought of the coming seed-time, leads him, in
March reveries at his fireside, over every field of his
farm. The master chord of the man in gray had been
touched, and it seemed as if it would never cease
vibrating. A not unsilvery tongue, too, was his, with
gestures that were a Pentecost of added ones, and persuasiveness
before which granite hearts might crumble
into gravel.

Strange, therefore, how his auditor, so singularly
good-hearted as he seemed, remained proof to such eloquence;
though not, as it turned out, to such pleadings.
For, after listening a while longer with pleasant
incredulity, presently, as the boat touched his place of
destination, the gentleman, with a look half humor, half
pity, put another bank-note into his hands; charitable
to the last, if only to the dreams of enthusiasm.

CHAPTER VIII. A CHARITABLE LADY.

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals,
an enthusiast in a reason-fit is not the most lively.
And this, without prejudice to his greatly improved
understanding; for, if his elation was the height of his
madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity.
Something thus now, to all appearance, with the
man in gray. Society his stimulus, loneliness was his
lethargy. Loneliness, like the sea-breeze, blowing off
from a thousand leagues of blankness, he did not find,
as veteran solitaires do, if anything, too bracing. In
short, left to himself, with none to charm forth his
latent lymphatic, he insensibly resumes his original air,
a quiescent one, blended of sad humility and demureness.

Ere long he goes laggingly into the ladies' saloon, as
in spiritless quest of somebody; but, after some disappointed
glances about him, seats himself upon a sofa
with an air of melancholy exhaustion and depression.

At the sofa's further end sits a plump and pleasant
person, whose aspect seems to hint that, if she have any
weak point, it must be anything rather than her

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excellent heart. From her twilight dress, neither dawn nor
dark, apparently she is a widow just breaking the chrysalis
of her mourning. A small gilt testament is in her
hand, which she has just been reading. Half-relinquished,
she holds the book in reverie, her finger inserted at
the xiii. of 1st Corinthians, to which chapter possibly
her attention might have recently been turned, by witnessing
the scene of the monitory mute and his slate.

The sacred page no longer meets her eye; but, as at
evening, when for a time the western hills shine on
though the sun be set, her thoughtful face retains its
tenderness though the teacher is forgotten.

Meantime, the expression of the stranger is such as
ere long to attract her glance. But no responsive one.
Presently, in her somewhat inquisitive survey, her
volume drops. It is restored. No encroaching politeness
in the act, but kindness, unadorned. The eyes of
the lady sparkle. Evidently, she is not now unprepossessed.
Soon, bending over, in a low, sad tone, full of
deference, the stranger breathes, “Madam, pardon my
freedom, but there is something in that face which
strangely draws me. May I ask, are you a sister of the
Church?”

“Why—really—you—”

In concern for her embarrassment, he hastens to relieve
it, but, without seeming so to do. “It is very
solitary for a brother here,” eyeing the showy ladies
brocaded in the background, “I find none to mingle
souls with. It may be wrong—I know it is—but I cannot
force myself to be easy with the people of the world.

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I prefer the company, however silent, of a brother or
sister in good standing. By the way, madam, may I ask
if you have confidence?”

“Really, sir—why, sir—really—I—”

“Could you put confidence in me for instance?”

“Really, sir—as much—I mean, as one may wisely
put in a—a—stranger, an entire stranger, I had almost
said,” rejoined the lady, hardly yet at ease in her affability,
drawing aside a little in body, while at the same
time her heart might have been drawn as far the other
way. A natural struggle between charity and prudence.

“Entire stranger!” with a sigh. “Ah, who would
be a stranger? In vain, I wander; no one will have
confidence in me.”

“You interest me,” said the good lady, in mild surprise.
“Can I any way befriend you?”

“No one can befriend me, who has not confidence.”

“But I—I have—at least to that degree—I mean
that—”

“Nay, nay, you have none—none at all. Pardon, I
see it. No confidence. Fool, fond fool that I am to
seek it!”

“You are unjust, sir,” rejoins the good lady with
heightened interest; “but it may be that something
untoward in your experiences has unduly biased you.
Not that I would cast reflections. Believe me, I—yes,
yes—I may say—that—that—”

“That you have confidence? Prove it. Let me have
twenty dollars.”

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“Twenty dollars!”

“There, I told you, madam, you had no confidence.”

The lady was, in an extraordinary way, touched. She
sat in a sort of restless torment, knowing not which way
to turn. She began twenty different sentences, and left
off at the first syllable of each. At last, in desperation,
she hurried out, “Tell me, sir, for what you want the
twenty dollars?”

“And did I not—” then glancing at her half-mourning,
“for the widow and the fatherless. I am traveling
agent of the Widow and Orphan Asylum, recently
founded among the Seminoles.”

“And why did you not tell me your object before?”
As not a little relieved. “Poor souls—Indians, too—
those cruelly-used Indians. Here, here; how could I
hesitate. I am so sorry it is no more.”

“Grieve not for that, madam,” rising and folding up
the bank-notes. “This is an inconsiderable sum, I admit,
but,” taking out his pencil and book, “though I
here but register the amount, there is another register,
where is set down the motive. Good-bye; you have
confidence. Yea, you can say to me as the apostle said
to the Corinthians, `I rejoice that I have confidence in
you in all things.'”

CHAPTER IX. TWO BUSINESS MEN TRANSACT A LITTLE BUSINESS.

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—“Pray, sir, have you seen a gentleman with a weed
hereabouts, rather a saddish gentleman? Strange where
he can have gone to. I was talking with him not
twenty minutes since.”

By a brisk, ruddy-cheeked man in a tasseled traveling-cap,
carrying under his arm a ledger-like volume,
the above words were addressed to the collegian before
introduced, suddenly accosted by the rail to which not
long after his retreat, as in a previous chapter recounted,
he had returned, and there remained.

“Have you seen him, sir?”

Rallied from his apparent diffidence by the genial
jauntiness of the stranger, the youth answered with unwonted
promptitude: “Yes, a person with a weed was
here not very long ago.”

“Saddish?”

“Yes, and a little cracked, too, I should say.”

“It was he. Misfortune, I fear, has disturbed his
brain. Now quick, which way did he go?”

“Why just in the direction from which you came,
the gangway yonder.”

“Did he? Then the man in the gray coat, whom I

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just met, said right: he must have gone ashore. How
unlucky!”

He stood vexedly twitching at his cap-tassel, which
fell over by his whisker, and continued: “Well, I am very
sorry. In fact, I had something for him here.”—Then
drawing nearer, “you see, he applied to me for relief,
no, I do him injustice, not that, but he began to intimate,
you understand. Well, being very busy just then, I
declined; quite rudely, too, in a cold, morose, unfeeling
way, I fear. At all events, not three minutes afterwards
I felt self-reproach, with a kind of prompting, very peremptory,
to deliver over into that unfortunate man's
hands a ten-dollar bill. You smile. Yes, it may be
superstition, but I can't help it; I have my weak side,
thank God. Then again,” he rapidly went on, “we
have been so very prosperous lately in our affairs—by
we, I mean the Black Rapids Coal Company—that, really,
out of my abundance, associative and individual, it is
but fair that a charitable investment or two should be
made, don't you think so?”

“Sir,” said the collegian without the least embarrassment,
“do I understand that you are officially connected
with the Black Rapids Coal Company?”

“Yes, I happen to be president and transfer-agent.”

“You are?”

“Yes, but what is it to you? You don't want to
invest?”

“Why, do you sell the stock?”

“Some might be bought, perhaps; but why do you
ask? you don't want to invest?”

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“But supposing I did,” with cool self-collectedness,
“could you do up the thing for me, and here?”

“Bless my soul,” gazing at him in amaze, “really,
you are quite a business man. Positively, I feel afraid
of you.”

“Oh, no need of that.—You could sell me some of
that stock, then?”

“I don't know, I don't know. To be sure, there are
a few shares under peculiar circumstances bought in by
the Company; but it would hardly be the thing to
convert this boat into the Company's office. I think
you had better defer investing. So,” with an indifferent
air, “you have seen the unfortunate man I spoke of?”

“Let the unfortunate man go his ways.—What is
that large book you have with you?”

“My transfer-book. I am subpœnaed with it to court.”

“Black Rapids Coal Company,” obliquely reading
the gilt inscription on the back; “I have heard much of
it. Pray do you happen to have with you any statement
of the condition of your company.”

“A statement has lately been printed.”

“Pardon me, but I am naturally inquisitive. Have
you a copy with you?”

“I tell you again, I do not think that it would be
suitable to convert this boat into the Company's office.—
That unfortunate man, did you relieve him at all?”

“Let the unfortunate man relieve himself.—Hand
me the statement.”

“Well, you are such a business-man, I can hardly
deny you. Here,” handing a small, printed pamphlet.

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