declared; and I was beginning with ardor to write a description of the Brooklyn Bridge by moonlight.
“Well, Tripp,” said I, looking up at him rather impatiently, “how goes it?” He was looking to-day more miserable, more cringing and haggard and downtrodden than I had ever seen him. He was at that stage of misery where he drew your pity so fully that you longed to kick him.
“Have you got a dollar?” asked Tripp, with his most fawning look and his dog-like eyes that blinked in the narrow space between his high-growing matted beard and his low-growing matted hair.
“I have,” said I; and again I said, “I have,” more loudly and inhospitably, “and four besides. And I had hard work corkscrewing them out of old Atkinson, I can tell you. And I drew them,” I continued, “to meet a want—a hiatus—a demand—a need—an exigency—a requirement of exactly five dollars.”
I was driven to emphasis by the premonition that I was to lose one of the dollars on the spot.
“I don’t want to borrow any,” said Tripp, and I breathed again. “I thought you’d like to get put onto a good story,” he went on. “I’ve
