AN AMERICAN CLAIMANT.

Evening Star, Issue 8772, 12 March 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN AMERICAN CLAIMANT.

[By Mabk Twain.] CHAPTER XI. During tho firßt few days he kept the fact diligently before his mind that he was in a laud where there was " work and bread for all." In fact, for convenience sake, he fitted it to a little tunc and hummed it to himself, but as timo wore on the fact itself began to take on a doubtful look, and next the tune got fatigued and presently ran down and stopped. His first effort was to get an upper clerkship in one of the departments, where hia Oxford education would come into play and do him service. But he stood no chance whatever. There, competency wai no recommendation; political backing, without competency, was worth six of it. Lie was glaringly English, and that was necessarily against him in the political centre of a natiou wheio both parties prayed for uho Irish cause on the house-tops and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his dress lie was a cowboy ; that won him respect '.vliL'n his back was not turned, but it couldn't get a clerkship for him. But he l\xi said, in a rash moment, that ho would v.'e.ir thoao clothes till tho owner or tho owner's friends caught EJ;.;ht of him and -.iskcd for that money, and his conscience would not lot him rctiro from that engagement now.

At the end of a week things were beginvdng tc Wear rather a startling look. He \\ail hunted everywhere for work, descending gradually tha scale of quality, until apparently ho had sued for all the various kinds of work a man without a special calling might hope to be able to do—except ditching and the other coarse manual sorts --and had got neither work nor the promise of it.

'A.: was mechanically turning over the ■-..■< of [213 diary meanwhile, and now his , -j H.i upon the first record made after ho :■; burnt out :

'■' l myself did not doubt my stamina l-.-foi-o, nobody could doubt it now, if they c mid aco how I am housed, and rcaliso that I fuel absolutely no disgust with these quarters, but am as serenely content with ri-em »3 any dog would be in a similar l;enncl. Terms, twenty-five dollars a week. 1 said I would start at tho bottom. I havo iiejit my word." A shudder went quaking through him, iin.l ha exclaimed :

"What havo I been thinking of? This Iho bottom! Mooning along a whole v.ov k, and these terrific expenses climbing ; :;d climbing all the time ! I must end this

iAly straightway." ; .lo settled up at once and went forth to iiu'l less sumptuous lodgings. Ho hud to \.\mder to and fro and seek with diligence, !iit he succeeded. Tiioy made him pay in i.dvrtuco four dollara and a half; this scoured both bed and food for a week. The hard worked landlady took •■im up three (lights of narrow, uncarpeted ■.A..MS and delivered him into hi 3 room. 'Cl.ere were two douMo bedsteads in it, and rue siuglc one. lie would bo allowed to jk-cp alono iu one of the double beds nntil :•• >me new boarder should come, but he wouldn't be charged extra.

So he would presently be required to i::p with some stranger! The thought of ft made him sick, Mrs Marsh, the land- ! ..ly, was very friendly, and hoped he ■would liko her house—they all liked it, she ..id.

" And they're a very nice set of boys.

'."hey carry on a good deal, but that's their l'in, You see, this room opens right into i.hia back one, and sometimes they're all in

■ r.\:. and sometimes in the other; and hot they all sleep on the roof when it is iii't rain, They get out thero tho minute V-i hot enough. The season's so early that they've already had a night or two up ''•ere. If you liko to go up and pick out a place, you can, You'll find chalk in the ■ ide of the chimney where there's a brick '.vanting. You just take the eh'.lk and—but, of course, you've done it before." "Oh, no, I haven't." " Why, of coarse you haven't. What am I thinking of? Plenty of room on the Plains without chalking, I'll be bound. Well, you ju3t chalk out a place the siz3 of ■a blanket anywhere on the tin that ain't already marked off. you know, and that's your property. You and your bedmata r kko turn about carrying up the blankets uud pillo\V3 and fetching them down again ; r one carries them up and the other fetches then down—you fix it the way you liko, you know. You'll like the boys, they're everlastingly sociable—except the printer. I It-'a the one that sleeps in that single bed —the strangest creature ; why, I don't believe you could get that man to sleep with

another man not if the house was afire. Mind you, I'm not just talking—l know. The boya tried him, to see. They took his bed out one night, and so when ho got home about three in the morning—he was on a morning paper then, but he's oa an evening one now—there wasn't any place lor him but with the ironmoulder, and if you'll believe me he just set up the rest of the night—he did, honest. They say he's cracked, bnt it ain't so, he's English—they're awful particular. You won't mind my saying that. You —you're English ?" "Yea,"

"I i.hought so. I could tell it by the way yt'U mispronounce the words that's got a'a ia them, you kuow—such aa saying 'loff' v,hen you mean Mali'; hut you'll get over that. He's a right down good fellow, and a iiitlo sociable with the photographer's boy,

•aud the caulker and tho blacksmith that work in tho navy yard, but not so much bo with the others. The net is, though—it's p;ivato, aud the others don't know it—he's :>. kind of aa aristocrat, his father being a ;' "tor; and you know what style that is—"n England, I mean—because in this country ii doctor ain't so very much, even if he's chat ; but over there, of courae, it'a different. So this chap had a falling out with his father, aud was pretty high strung, and just rut for this country ; and the first he knew lie had to get to work or starve. Well, he'd iu:oa to college, you sec, aud so he judged he was all right—did you say anything ?'' "No ; I only sighed."

"And there's where ho wa3 mistaken. Why, ho mighty near starved. And I re kon he would have starved sure enough if nome jour' printer or other hadn't took juty on him and got him a place aa apprentice. So ho learnt the trade, and then he wis all right; but it waa a close call. Oace he thought he had fjol to haul in his pride and holler for his father, and—why, you're -filing agaiu. Ia anything the matter with yi;u ? Does my clatter " " Oh, dear, no. Pray go on—l like it." " Yes, you see he's been over here ten

years ; ho's twenty-eight now, and he ain't pretty well satisfied iu his mind, because ho can't get reconciled to being a mechanic and associating with mechanics, he being, as he aaya to me, a gentleman, which is a pretty plain letting on that the boys ain't; but, of course, I know enough not to let that cat out of the bag." " Why, w—would there bo any harm in it?"

" Harm in it? They'd lick him, wouldn't they ? Wouldn't you ? Of course you would. Don't you ever lot a man say you ain't a gentleman ia this country. But laws, what am I thinking about ? I reckon a body would think twico before ho said a cowboy waan't a gentleman." A trim, active, Blender, and very pretty ;;irf of about eighteen walked into the room now, ia the most sathfiod and unembarrassed way. She was cheaply but smartly and gracefully dreased, and the mother's quick glance at the stranger's face aa he rose was of a kind which inquires what effect haa been produced, and expects to find indications of surprise and admiration,

"This is my daughter Hattie—wo call her Puaa. It's the new boarder, Pubs," This without rising. The young Englishman made the awkward bow common to hia nationality and time of life in circumstances of delicacy and ilitHculty, and these words of that sort; for, being taken by surprise, his natural, lift-long self sprang to the front, and that self, of course, would not know just how to act when introduced to a chambermaid, or to the heiress of a mechanics' boardinghouse. His other self—the self which recognised the equality of all men— -would have managed the thing better, if it hadn't been caught off guard and robbed of its chance. The young girl paid no attention to the bow, but put out out her hand frankly and gave the stranger a friendly shake, and

11 How do you do V Then the marohed to the one washstand in the room, tilted her head this way and that before the wreok of a cheap mirror that hang over it, dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfeoted the circle of a little look of hair that was pasted against her forehead, then began to busy herself with the slops. " Well, I mast be going-it's getting towards Buppor time. Make yourself at home, Mr Tracy ; you'll hear the bell when it's ready." The landlady took her tranquil departure without commanding either of the young people to vacate the room. The young man wondered a little that a mother who seemed so honest and respectable should be so thoughtless, and was reachiog for his hat, intending to disembarrass the girl of his presence ; but she said : " Whore are you going ?" " Well, nowhere in particular, but as I am only in the way here " "Why, who said you were in the way? Sit down—l'll move you when you are in the way." She was making the beds now. He sat down and watched her deft and diligent performance.

" What gave you that notion ? Do you reckon I need a whole room just to mako up a bed or two in ?"

"Well, no, it wasn't that exactly. We aro away up hero in an empty house, and your mother being gone " The girl interrupted him with an amused laugh, aud said: "Nobody to protect me? Bless you, I don't neod that. I'm not afraid. I might be if I was alone, because I do hate ghosts, and I don't deny it. Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm only just afraid of them."

" How can you be afraid of them if you don't believe in them ?" "Oh, /don't know the how of it—that's too many for wie ; I only know it's so. It's the sumo with Maggie Lee."

"Who is that?" "One of tho boarders; young lady that works in the factory." " She works in a factory ?'' " Yes, shoo factory." "In a shoo factory; and you call her a young lady ?" " Why, Bhe's only twenty-two; what should you call her ?" "I wasn't thinking of her age; I was thinking of her title. Tho fact is, I came away from Englaud to get away from artificial forms—for artificial forms suit artificial peoplo only—aud here you've got them too. I'm sorry. I hoped you had only men and women ; everybody equal; no difference in rank."

Tho girl stopped with a pillow in her teeth and the case spread open below it, contemplating him from under her brows with a slightly puzzled expression. Sho replaced the pillow, and said : " Why, they arc all equal. Where's any difference in rank?"

"If you call a factory girl a young lady, what do you call the President's wife ?"

"Call her anoJci one." " Oh, you make ago the only distinc tion ?'*

"There ain't any other to make, aa far as I can Eee." " Then all women are ladies ?'' " Certainly they are. All the respectable ones."

" Well, that puts a better face on it. Certainly there is no harm in a title which is given to everybody. It is only an offence and a wrong when it is restricted to a favored few. But Mias—er " " Hattie."

" Miss Hattie, be frank; confess that the title isn't accorded by everybody to ovorybedy. The rich American doeßn't call her cook a ladv—insn't that so ?"

" Yes, it's so, What of it." He was surprised and a little disappointed to see that his admirable shot had produced no perceptible effect. "What 0/ it?' he said. "Why this, equality is not conceded here after all, and the Americans are no better off than the English, In fact, there's no difference." " Now, what an idea. There's nothing in a title except what is put into it—you've said that yourself. Suppose £he title is clean, instead of lady. You get that ?" " I believe so. Instead of speaking of a woman as a lady, you substitute clean, and say she's a clean person." "Tnat'a it. Iu England the swell folks don't speak of the working people as gentlemen aod ladies ?''

"0h.n0." " Aud the working people don't call themselves gentlemen and ladies ?" "Certainly not." "So if you used the other word there wouldn't be any chauge. Tho swell people wouldn't Cill anybody but themselves " clean," and those others would drop sort of meekly into their way of talking, and they wouldn't call themselves clean. We dou't do that way here. Everybody calls himself a lady or a gentleman, and thinks ho is, and don't care what anybody else thinks him, so long a3 he don't say it out loud. You think there's no difference. You knuckle dov:n and we don't. Ain't that a difference ?"

" It is a difference I hadn't thought of, I admit that. Still, mUiivj one's self a lady doesn't—er "

" I wouldn't go on if I were you."

Howard Tracy turned hia head to see who it might be that had introduced this remark. It was a short man about forty years old, with untidy hair, no beard, and a pleasant face badly freeklod, but alive and intelligent, and ho wore slop shop clothing, which wa> neat, but showed wear. He hud como from the front room beyond the hall, where ho had left hia hat, and he had a chipped and cracked white wash-bowl iu his hand. The girl came and took the bowl. " I'll get it for you. You go right ahead and ijive it to him, Mr Barrow. He's the new boarder, Mr Tracy, and I'd just got to where it was getting too deep for me," "Much obliged if you will, Hattie, I was coming to borrow of the boys." He sat down at his ease on an old trunk, and said : "I've been listening and got interested; and aa I was saying, I wouldn't go on, if I were you. You see where you are comiDg to, don't you '! Galling yourself a lady doesn't elect you—that is what you were going to say; and you saw that if you said it you were going to run right up against another difference that you hadn't thought of—to wit, whose right is it to do the electing ? Over there twenty thousand people in a million elect themselves gentlemen and ladies, and the nine hundred and eighty thousand accept that decree and swallow the atlront which it puts upon them. Why, if they didn't accept it, it wouldn't be an election ; it would be a dead letter and have no force at all. Over hero the twenty thousand would be exclusives come up to the polls and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen. But the thing don't stop there. The nine hundred and eighty thousand come and vote themselves to be ladies and gentlemen, too, and that elects the whole nation. Since the whole million vote themselves hdies and gentlemen, there is no question about that election. It does make absolute equality, and there is no fiotion about it; while over yonder tho inequality (by decree of the infinitely feeble, and consent of tho infinitely strong) is also absolute—as real and absolute as our equality." Tracy had shruuk promptly into his English shell when this Bpeech began, notwithstanding he hacV now been in severe training several weeks for contact and intercourse with the common herd, on the common herd's terms; but he lost no time in pulling himself out again, and bo by the time the speech was finished his valves were open once more, and he was forcing himself to accept without resentment the common herd's frank fashion of dropping sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed and uninvited. The process was not very difficult this time, for the man's smile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning. Tracy would even have liked him on tho spot, but for the fact—faot whioh he was not really aware of—that the equality of men was not a reality to him, it was only a theory; "he mind perceived, but the man failed to feel it, It'was Hattie's ghost over again, merely turned round. Theoretically Barrow was hh equal, but it was distinctly distasteful to soe him exhibit it. He presently said:

" I hope in all sincerity that what you have said is true as regards the Americans, for doubts have crept into my mind several times. It seemed that the equality must be ungenuine where the Bignnames of castes were still in vogue; but those sign names

have certainly lost their offenoe and are wholly neutralised, nullified, and harmless if they are the undisputed property of every individnal in the nation. I think I realise that caste doos not exist and cannot exist exoept by common consent of the masses outside of its limits. I thought caste created itself and perpetuated itself; but it seems quite true that it only creates itself and is perpetuated by the people whom it despises, and who can dissolve it at any time by ( assuming its mere sign-names themselves. ! "It's what I think. There isn't any power on earth that can prevent England's thirty millions from electing themselves! dukes and duchesses to-morrow, and calling ! themeelves so. And within six months all j the former dukes and duchesses would have retired from the business. I wish • they'd try that. Royalty itßelf couldn't survive such a process. A handful of frowners against thirty million laughers in a state of eruption. Why, it's Herculane urn against Vesuvius. It would take another eighteen centuries to find that Uerculaneum after the cataclysm. What's a colonel in our South? He's a nobody; because they are all colonels down there. No, Tracy (shudder from Tracy), nobody in England would call you a gentleman, and you wouldn't call yourself one, and I tell you it's a state of things that makos a man put himself into most unbecoming attitudes sometimes—the broad and general recognition and acceptance of caste an caste does, I mean. Makes him do it unconsciouslybeing bred in him, you see, and never thought over and reasoned cut. You couldn't conceive of the Matterhorn being flattered by the notice of one of your comely little English hills, could you ?" "Why.no." " Well, then, let a man in his right mind try to conceive of Darwin feeling flittered by the notice of a princess. It's so grotesque that it—well, it paralyses the imagination. Yet that Memnon ioas flattered by the notica of that statuette ; he says so—says so himself. The system that can make a god disown his godship and profane it—oh, well, it's all wrong, it's all wrong, and ought to be abolished, I should say. The mention of Darwin brought on a literary discussion, and this topic roused such enthusiasm in Barrow that he took off his coat and made himaolf the more free and comfortable for it, and detained him so long that he wua still at it when the noisy proprietors of the room came shouting and skylarking in, and began to romp, scuffle, wash, and otherwise entertain themselves. Ho lingered yet a little longer to offer the hospitalities of his room and his book-shelf to Tracy, and ask him a personal question or two: " What is your trado ?"

" They—well, they call me a cowboy, but that i j a fancy ; I'm not that. I havea't any trade."

" What do you work at for your living ?"

" Oh, anything—l mean I icould work at anything I could get to do, but thus far I haven't been able to find an occupation." " Maybe I can help you ; I'd like to try." " I shall very glad. I'vo tried myself, to wearines3."

" Well, of course where a man hasn't a regular trade he's pretty bad off in this world. What you need, I reckon, was lesa book learning and more bread-and-butter learning. I don't know what your father could have been thinking of. You ought to have had a trade—you ought to havo had a trade by all means. But never mind about that; we'll stir up something to do, I guess. And don't you get homesick ; that's u bad business. We'll talk the thing over and look around a little; you'll come out all right. Wait for me—l'll go down to supper with you." By this time Tracy had achieved a very friendly feeling for Barrow, and would have called him a friend, maybe, if not taken too suddenly on a straight-out requirement to realise on his theories. He was glad of his society, any way, and was feeliug lighter hearted than before. Also, he was pretty curious to know what vocation it might be which had furnished Barrow such a large acquaintanceship with books and allowed him so much time to read. CHAPTER XII. Presently the supper bell began to ring in the depths of tho house, and the sound proceeded steadily upward, growing in intensity all the way up towards the upper floors. The higher it came the more maddening was the noise, until at last what it lacked of being absolutely deafening was made up of the sudden crash and clatter of an avalanche of boarders down the uncarpeted stairway. The peerage did not go to meals in this fashion; Tracy's training had not fitted him to enjoy this hilarious zoological clamor and enthusiasm. He had to confess that there was something about this extraordinary outpouring of animal spirits which ho would have to get inured to before ho could accept it. No doubt in time he would prefer it; but he wished the process might be modified and made just a littlo more gradual, and not quite so pronounced and violent. Barrow and Tracy followed the avalanche down through an over increasing and ever more and more aggressive stench of bygone cabbage and kindred smells; smells which are to be found nowhero but in a cheap private boarding-house ; smella which once encountered can never be forgotten ; smella which encountered gonerationß later are instantly recognisable, but never recognisablo with pleasure. To Tracy these odors were suffocating, horrible, almost unendurable ; but ho held his peace and said nothing, Arrived in the basement, they entered a largo dining room, where thirty-five or forty people sat at a long table. They took their places. Tho feast had already begun, and the conversation was going on in the liveliest way from one end of the table to the other. Tho tablecloth was of very coarse material, and was liberally Bpotted with coffee stains and grease. The knives and forks were iron, with bone handles; the spoons appeared to be iron or sheet iron, or something of the sort. The tea and coffee cups were of the commonest and heaviost and most durable stoneware. All the furniture of the tablo was of the commonest and cheapest sort. There was a single largo thick Blice of bread by each boarder's plate, and it was observable that he economised it as if he were not expecting it to be duplicatod. Dishes of butter were distributed along the table within reach of peoplo'a arms, if they had long ones, but there wore no private butter plates. Tho butter was perhapa good enough, and was quiet and well behaved; but it had more bouquet than was necessary, though nobody commented upon that fact or seemed in any way disturbed by it. The main feature of the feast was a piping hot Irish stew, made of the potatoes and moat left over from a procession of previous meals. Everybody was liberally supplied with this dish, On tho table were a oouple of great dishes of sliced ham, and there were sorno other eatables of minor importance, preserves and New Orleans molasses and such things. There was also plenty of tea and coffee of an infernal sort, with brown sugar and condensed milk, but tho milk and Bugar supply was not left at the discretion of the boarders, but was rationed out at headquarters—one spoonful of sugar and one of condensed milk to each cup, and no moro. Tho tablo was waited upon by two stalwart negro women, who raced back and forth from the bases of supplies with splendid dash and clatter and energy. Their labors were supplemented after a fashion by the young girl Puss. She carried coffee and tea back and forth -among tho boarders, but she made pleasure excursions rather than business ones in this way, to speak strictly. She made jokes with various people, She chaffed the young men pleasantly—and wittily, as she supposed, and as the rest also supposed apparently, judging by the applause and laughter which she got by her efforts. Manifestly she was a favorite with most of the young fellows and sweetheart of the rest of them. Where she conferred notice she conferred happiness, as was seen by the face of the recipient; and at the same time she conferred unhappiness—one could see it fall and dim the faces of the other young fellows like a shadow. She never "mistered" these friends of hers, but oalled them •'Billy," " Tom," "John," and they oalled her " Puss" or " Hattie."

Mr Marsh sat at the head of the table, his wife Bat at the foot. Marsh was a man of sixty, and was an American; but if he had been born a month earlier he would have been a Spaniard. He was plenty good enough Spaniard as it was; his face was very dark, his hair very black, and his eyea were not wily exceedingly black, bub

were very intense, and there was something about them that indicated that they could burn with passion upon occasion. He was stoop-shouldered and leanfaoed, and the general aspeot of him was disagreeable; he was evidently not a very companionable person. If looks went for anything, he was the very opposite of his wife, who waß all metherlineea and oharity, goodwill and good nature. All the young men and the women called her Aunt Rachel, whioh was another sign. Traoy'a wandering and interested eyo presently fell upon one boarder who had been overlooked in the distribution of the stow. He was very pale, and looked as if he had but lately come out of a sick bed, and also as if he ought to get back into it again as soon as possible. His face was very melancholy. The waves of laughter and conversation broke upon it without effecting it any more than if it had been a rock in the sea and the words and the laughter veritable waters. He held his head down and looked ashamed. Some of the women oast glances of pity toward him from time to time in a furtive and halfafraid way, and some of the youngest of the men plainly had compassion ori the young fellow —a compassion exhibited in thoir faces, but not in any more active or compromising way. But the great majority of the people present showed entire indifference to the youth and his sorrows. Marsh sat with his head down, but one could catch the malioious gleam of his eyes through his shaggy brows. He was watching that young fellow with evident relish. He had not neglected him through carelessness, and apparently the table understood that fact, The spectacle was making Mrs Marsh very uncomfortable. She had the look of one who hopes against hope that the impossible may happen. But as the impossible did not happen, she finally ventured to speak up and remind her husband that Nat Brady hadn't been helped to the Irish stew.

Marsh lifted his head and gasped out with mock courtliness: " Oh, he hasn't, hasn't he? What a pity that is. I don't know how I came to overlook him. Ah !he must pardon me. You must indeed Mr—er—Baxter— Barkor, you must pardon me. I—er—my attention was directed to some other matter, I don't know what. The thing that grieves me mainly is that it happens every meal now. But you must try to overlook these little things, Mr Bunker, these little neglects on my part. They're always likely to happen with me in any case, and they are especially likely to happen where a person has—er—well, where a person is, say, about three weeks in arrears for his board. You get my meaning ? You got my idea ? Here is your Irish stew, and—er—it gives me the greatest pleasure to send it to you, and I hopo that you will enjoy the charity as much as I enjoy conferring it." A blush rose in Brady's white cheeks and flowed slowly backward to his ears and upward towards his foreheard, but he said nothing, and began to eat his food under the embarrassment of a general silence and the sense that all eyes were fastened upon him. Barrow whispered to Tracy: " The old man's been waiting for that. He wouldn't have missed that chance for anything." "It's a brutal business," said Tracy. Then he said to himself, purposing to set the thought down in his diary later: " Well, here in this very house is a republic where all ate freo and equal, if men are free and equal anywhere in the earth, therefore I have arrived at the place I started to find, and I am a man among men, and on the strictest equality possible to men, no doubt. Yet here on the threshold I find an inequality. There are people at this table who are looked up to for some reason or another, and here is a poor devil of a boy who is looked down upon, treated with indifference, and Bhamed with humiliations, when he has committed no crime but that common one of being poor. Equality ought to make men noble-minded. In fact, I had supposed it did do that." After supper Birrow proposed a walk, and they started. Birrow had a purpose. Ho wanted Tracy to get rid of that cowboy hat. He didn't see his way to finding mechanical or manual employment for a person rigged in that fashion. Barrow presently said : " As I understand it, you're not a cowboy." "No, I'm not." " Well, now, if you will not think me too curious, how did you come to mount that hat ? Where did you get it ?" Tracy didn't know quite how to reply to this, but presently paid : " Well, without going into particulars, I exchanged clothes with a stranger under stress of weather, and I would liko to find I him and re-exehange." | " Well, why don't you find him ? Where |is he?"

" I don't know. I suppose the best way to find him would be to continue to wear hia clothes, which aro conspicuous enough to attract his attention if I should meet him on the street."

" Oh, very well," said Barrow, " The rest of the outfit is well enough, and while it's not too conspicuous, it isn't quite like the clothes that anybody else wears. Suppress the hat. When you meet your man he'll recognise the reel of lub suit. That's a mighty embarrassing hat, you know, in a centre of civilisation like this. I don't believe an angel could get employment in Washington iu a halo like that." Tracy agreed to replace the hat with Bornething of a modester form, and they stepped aboard a crowded car and stood with others on the rear platform. Presently, as the car moved swiftly along the rails, two men crossing the t-treot caught sight of the backs of Bmow and Tracy, and both exclaimed at once " There lie is ! " It was Sellers and Hawkins. Both were so paralysed with joy that before they could pull themselves together and make an effort to stop the car, it was gone too far, and they decided to wait for the Dcxt one. They waited a while; then it occurred to Washington that there could bo no use in chasing one horse car with another, and he wanted to hunt a hack. But the Colonel said:

" When you come to think of it, there's no occasion for that at all. Now that Ive got him materialised I can command his notions. I'll Lave him at the house by the time we get there." Then they hurried off home in a state of great and joyful excitement, Tho hat exchange accomplished, the two new friends started to walk back leisurely to the boarding-house. Barrow's mind was full of curiosity about this young fellow. He said:

" You've never been to tho Rocky Mountains?" "No." " You've never been out on the plains ?" "No." "How long have you been in this country ?" "Only a few days." " You've never been in America before?" " No."

Then Birrow communed with himself. "Now what odd shapes the notions of romantic people take. Here's a young fellow who'a read in England about cowboys and adventures on the plain?. He comes hero and buys a cowboy's euifc. Thinks he can play himself on folks for a cowboy, all inex perienced as he is. Now the minute he's caught in this poor little gamo he's ashamed of it, and ready to retire from it. It is that exchange that he has put up as an explanation. It's rather thin; too thin altogether, Well, he's young; never been anywhere ; knows nothing about the world; sentimental, no doubt. Perhaps it was the natural thing for him to do, but it was a most singular ohoice, curious freak altogether." Both men were busy with their thoughts for a time; then Tracy heaved a sigh, and said:

" Mr Barrow, the oase of that young fellow troubles me."

" You mean Nat Brady ?" " Yes, Brady, or Baxter, or whatever it was. The old landlord called him several different names."

" Oh, yes j he has been very liberal with names for Brady since Brady fell into arrears for his board. Well, that ib one of his sarcasms; tbe old man thinks he's great on sarcasm," " We V, what is Brady's difficulty 1 What is Brady ?—who is he ?" "Brady is a tinner. He's a young journeyman tinner who was getting along all right till he fell sick and lost bis job. He was very popular before he lost his job ; everybody in the house liked Brady. Tho old man was rather especially fond of him,

but you know that when a man loses bis job, and loses his ability to support himself and to pay his way as he goes, it makes a great difference in the way people look at him and feel about him." "Is that so! Is it so?"

Barrow looked at Traoy in a puzzled way. " Why, of course, it's so. Wouldn't you know that, naturally. Don't you know that the wounded deer is always attacked and killed by its companions and friends ?'' Traoy said to himself, while a ohilly and boding discomfort spread itself through his system : "In a republic of deer and men where all are free and equal, misfortune is a orime, and the prosperous gore the unfortunate to death," Then he said aloud: " Here in the boarding-house, if one would have friends and be popular instead of having the cold shoulder turned upon him he must be prosperous." "Yes," Barrow said, "that is so. It's their human nature. They do turn against Brady, now that he is unfortunate, and they don't like him as well as they did before; but it isn't because of any lack in Brady—he's just as he was before, has the same nature and the same impulses, but they—well, Brady is a thorn in their consciences, you see. They know they ought to help him, and they're too stingy to do it, and they're ashamed of themselveß for that; and they ought also to hate themselveß on that account, but instead of that they hate Brady because he makes them ashamed of themselves. I say that's human nature; that occurs everywhere ; this boardinghouse is merely the world in little; it's the case all over—they're all alike. In prosperity we are popular; popularity comes easy in that case ; but when the other thing comes our friends are pretty likely to turn against us." Tracy's noble theories and high purposes were beginning to feel pretty damp and clammy, He wondered if by any possibility he had made a mistake in throwing his own prosperity to the winds and taking up the cross of other people's or prosperity. But he wouldn't listen to that sort of thing ; he oast it out of his mind, and resolved to go ahead resolutely along the course he had mapped out for himself. Extracts from his diary : "Have now spent several days in this singular hive. I don'!; know quite what to make out of these people. They have merits and virtues, but they have some other qualities, and some ways that are hard to get along with, I can't eDJoy them, The moment I appeared in a hat of the period I notioed a change. The respect which had been paid mo before passed suddenly away, and the people became friendly —more than that—they became familiar, and I'm not used to familiarity, and can't take to it right off; I find that out. These people's familiarity amounts to impudence sometime?. I suppose it's all right; no doubt I can get used to it, but it's not a satisfactory procese at all. lam a man among men, on an equal footing with Tom, Dick, and Harry, and yet it isn't just exactly what I thought it was going to be. I—l miss home. Am obliged to say lam homesick. Another thing and thiß is a confession—a reluctant one, but I will make it: the thing I miss most, and most severely, hj the respect, the deference, with which I was treated all my life in England, and which seems to be somehow necessary to me. I get along very well without the luxury and the wealth and the sort of society I've been accustomed to, but I do miss the respect, and can't see.ii to get reconciled to the absence of it. There is respect, there is deference here, but it doesn't fall to my share. It is lavished on two men. Oue of them is a portly man of middle age, who u a retired plumber. Everybody is pleased to have that man's notice. He's full of pomp and oircumstance and self-complacency and bad grammar, and at table he is Sir Oracle, and when he opens his mouth not any dog in the kennel barks. The other person is the policeman at the Capitol building. He represents the Government. The deference paid to these two men is not so very far short of that which is paid to an carl in England, though the method of it differs. Not so much courtliness, but the deference is all there, Yes, and there is obsequiousness, too. It docs rather look as if in a republic, where all are freo and equal, prosperity and position constitute rank. (To he continued.)