I took it, well pleased, saying, "You ought to tell me not to get drunk on it."
"I was going to."
"People usually do. I have done it often," I said, as I was about to leave her. "You have been really very good to me. It is unfortunate that no one believes me, but that does not alter my obligation to you. Some day you will be thankful that you fed a hungry man."
"But I am always thankful for that."
I said, "Good-morning, Madam."
"Oh! good-by."
I went away down the road with the remnants of my loaf, missing the dog, who had left me the night before to forage for himself. The air was cooler, the country pleasant. I wandered into by-roads, or sat and considered ways and means of bettering myself. I did steal four pears (they were lying near the road). I watched some boys fishing in a mill-race and gave useful sporting advice. One of them presented me with an aged apple, a russet. After they had gone I sat down by the mill-stream, ate a little stale bread, and—from habit—feeling for the absent luxury of a handkerchief, became aware of the newspaper in my breast-pocket. It was only a fragment—a small half-sheet. I settled myself on the grass with some curiosity as to this bit of biography. I still have the paper. It ran thus:
"OVERWHELMING CATASTROPHE.
"DRUNKEN HORSE-THIEF—ATTEMPT TO STEAL MR. JOSEPH SMILE'S MARE.
"Yesterday a man without baggage arrived at the Washington Hotel and hired a man to drive him to the mines. He got rid of the driver on some pretext and drove himself down the hill. There he collided with the Boss Elephant of the circus, smashed the wagon, killed the mare and a monkey, lamed a zebra, and broke his own head. Our distinguished young financier, Mr. Thomas Sedgeley, the cashier of the bank, stopped the horse and saved the life of the horse-thief at the cost to himself of a broken leg. The circus people carried both men to the poorhouse hospital.
"Mr. Smile has the sympathy of his fellow-townsmen. The man may recover. His injuries probably saved him from the prompt punishment of a justly infuriated community. Mr. Sedgeley is doing well."
I began to see, as I read this over, that my future in New Samaria was not to be unclouded. Assuredly, as a statement of facts, the report lacked accuracy, but if a newspaper were always accurate, what would there be left to say next day?
On this Saturday evening I went back to the town and spent thirty cents on a luxurious supper. I bought two two-cent cigars and a box of sulphur matches, and then returned to the country and my hay-heap
