unwilling to part with me; but I could not bear to be the ruin of so
good a brother. Without telling him my design, I left his house,
careless of what should become of me. Hunger, however, soon compelled
me to think of some immediate mode of obtaining relief. I sat down upon
a stone, before the door of a baker's shop; the smell of hot bread
tempted me in, and with a feeble voice I demanded charity.

"The master baker gave me as much bread as I could eat, upon condition
that I should change dresses with him, and carry the rolls for him
through the city this day. To this I readily consented; but I had soon
reason to repent of my compliance. Indeed, if my ill luck had not, as
usual, deprived me at this critical moment of memory and judgment, I
should never have complied with the baker's treacherous proposal. For
some time before, the people of Constantinople had been much
dissatisfied with the weight and quality of the bread furnished by the
bakers. This species of discontent has often been the sure forerunner
of an insurrection; and, in these disturbances, the master bakers
frequently lose their lives. All these circumstances I knew; but they
did not occur to my memory, when they might have been useful.

"I changed dresses with the baker; but scarcely had I proceeded through
the adjoining streets with my rolls, before the mob began to gather
round me, with reproaches and execrations. The crowd pursued me even to
the gates of the grand seignior's palace; and the grand vizier, alarmed
at their violence, sent out an order to have my head struck off; the
usual remedy, in such cases, being to strike off the baker's head.

"I now fell upon my knees, and protested I was not the baker for whom
they took me; that I had no connection with him; and that I had never
furnished the people of Constantinople with bread that was not weight.
I declared I had merely changed clothes with a master baker, for this
day; and that I should not have done so, but for the evil destiny which
governs all my actions. Some of the mob exclaimed that I deserved to
lose my head for my folly; but others took pity on me, and whilst the
officer, who was sent to execute the vizier's order, turned to speak to
some of the noisy rioters, those who were touched by my misfortune
opened a passage for me through the crowd, and, thus favored, I
effected my escape.

"I quitted Constantinople: my vase I had left in the care of my
brother. At some miles' distance from the city, I overtook a party of
soldiers. I joined them; and learning that they were going to embark
with the rest of the grand seignior's army for Egypt, I resolved to
accompany them. If it be, thought I, the will of Mahomet that I should
perish, the sooner I meet my fate the better. The despondency into
which I was sunk was attended by so great a degree of indolence, that I
scarcely would take the necessary means to preserve my existence.
During our passage to Egypt, I sat all day long upon the deck of the
vessel, smoking my pipe; and I am convinced that if a storm had risen,
as I expected, I should not have taken my pipe from my mouth, nor
should I have handled a rope, to save myself from destruction. Such is
the effect of that species of resignation or torpor, whichever you
please to call it, to which my strong belief in _fatality_ had reduced
my mind.

"We landed, however, safely, contrary to my melancholy forebodings. By
a trifling accident, not worth relating, I was detained longer than any
of my companions in the vessel when we disembarked; and I did not
arrive at the camp till late at night. It was moonlight, and I could
see the whole scene distinctly. There was a vast number of small tents
scattered over a desert of white sand; a few date-trees were visible at
a distance; all was gloomy, and all still; no sound was to be heard but
that of the camels, feeding near the tents; and, as I walked on, I met
with no human creature.

"My pipe was now out, and I quickened my pace a little towards a fire,
which I saw near one of the tents. As I proceeded, my eye was caught by
something sparkling in the sand: it was a ring. I picked it up, and put
it on my finger, resolving to give it to the public crier the next
morning, who might find out its rightful owner: but by ill luck, I put
it on my little finger, for which it was much too large; and as I
hastened towards the fire to light my pipe, I dropped the ring. I
stooped to search for it amongst the provender on which a mule was
feeding; and the cursed animal gave me so violent a kick on the head,
that I could not help roaring aloud.

"My cries awakened those who slept in the tent, near which the mule was
feeding. Provoked at being disturbed, the soldiers were ready enough to
think ill of me; and they took it for granted that I was a thief, who
had stolen the ring I pretended to have just found. The ring was taken
from me by force; and the next day I was bastinadoed for having found
it: the officer persisting in the belief that stripes would make me
confess where I had concealed certain other articles of value, which
had lately been missed in the camp. All this was the consequence of my
being in a hurry to light my pipe, and of my having put the ring on a
finger that was too little for it; which no one but Murad the Unlucky
would have done.

"When I was able to walk again after my wounds were healed, I went into
one of the tents distinguished by a red flag, having been told that
these were coffee-houses. Whilst I was drinking coffee, I heard a
stranger near me complaining that he had not been able to recover a
valuable ring he had lost; although he had caused his loss to be
published for three days by the public crier, offering a reward of two
hundred sequins to whoever should restore it. I guessed that this was
the very ring which I had unfortunately found. I addressed myself to
the stranger, and promised to point out to him the person who had
forced it from me. The stranger recovered his ring; and, being
convinced that I had acted honestly, he made me a present of two
hundred sequins, as some amends for the punishment which I had unjustly
suffered on his account.

"Now you would imagine that this purse of gold was advantageous to me:
far the contrary; it was the cause of new misfortunes.

"One night, when I thought that the soldiers who were in the same tent
with me were all fast asleep, I indulged myself in the pleasure of
counting my treasure. The next day I was invited by my companions to
drink sherbet with them. What they mixed with the sherbet which I
drank, I know not; but I could not resist the drowsiness it brought on.
I fell into a profound slumber; and, when I awoke, I found myself lying
under a date-tree, at some distance from the camp.

"The first thing I thought of, when I came to my recollection, was my
purse of sequins. The purse I found still safe in my girdle; but, on
opening it, I perceived that it was filled with pebbles, and not a
single sequin was left. I had no doubt that I had been robbed by the
soldiers with whom I had drunk sherbet; and I am certain that some of
them must have been awake the night I counted my money; otherwise, as I
had never trusted the secret of my riches to any one, they could not
have suspected me of possessing any property; for, ever since I kept
company with them, I had appeared to be in great indigence.

"I applied in vain to the superior officers for redress: the soldiers
protested they were innocent; no positive proof appeared against them,
and I gained nothing by my complaint but ridicule and ill-will. I
called myself, in the first transport of my grief, by that name which,
since my arrival in Egypt, I had avoided to pronounce: I called myself
Murad the Unlucky! The name and the story ran through the camp; and I
was accosted afterwards, very frequently, by this appellation. Some
indeed varied their wit by calling me Murad with the purse of pebbles.

"All that I had yet suffered is nothing compared to my succeeding
misfortunes.

"It was the custom at this time, in the Turkish camp, for the soldiers
to amuse themselves with firing at a mark. The superior officers
remonstrated against this dangerous practice, but ineffectually.
Sometimes a party of soldiers would stop firing for a few minutes,
after a message was brought them from their commanders; and then they
would begin again, in defiance of all orders. Such was the want of
discipline in our army, that this disobedience went unpunished. In the
mean time, the frequency of the danger made most men totally regardless
of it. I have seen tents pierced with bullets, in which parties were
quietly seated smoking their pipes, whilst those without were preparing
to take fresh aim at the red flag on the top.

"This apathy proceeded, in some, from unconquerable indolence of body;
in others, from the intoxication produced by the fumes of tobacco and
of opium; but in most of my brother Turks it arose from the confidence
which the belief in predestination inspired. When a bullet killed one
of their companions, they only observed, scarcely taking the pipes from
their mouths, 'Our hour is not yet come: it is not the will of Mahomet
that we should fall.'

"I own that this rash security appeared to me, at first, surprising;
but it soon ceased to strike me with wonder; and it even tended to
confirm my favorite opinion, that some were born to good and some to
evil fortune. I became almost as careless as my companions, from
following the same course of reasoning. It is not, thought I, in the
power of human prudence to avert the stroke of destiny. I shall perhaps
die to-morrow; let me therefore enjoy to-day.

"I now made it my study, every day, to procure as much amusement as
possible. My poverty, as you will imagine, restricted me from
indulgence and excess; but I soon found means to spend what did not
actually belong to me. There were certain Jews who were followers of
the camp, and who, calculating on the probability of victory for our
troops, advanced money to the soldiers; for which they engaged to pay
these usurers exorbitant interest. The Jew to whom I applied traded
with me also upon the belief that my brother Saladin, with whose
character and circumstances he was acquainted, would pay my debts, if I
should fall. With the money I raised from the Jew I continually bought
coffee and opium, of which I grew immoderately fond. In the delirium it
created, I forgot all my misfortunes, all fear of the future.

"One day, when I had raised my spirits by an unusual quantity of opium,
I was strolling through the camp, sometimes singing, sometimes dancing,
like a madman, and repeating that I was not now Murad the Unlucky.
Whilst these words were on my lips, a friendly spectator, who was in
possession of his sober senses, caught me by the arm, and attempted to
drag me from the place where I was exposing myself. 'Do you not see,'
said he, 'those soldiers, who are firing at a mark? I saw one of them,
just now, deliberately taking aim at your turban; and, observe, he is
now reloading his piece.' My ill luck prevailed even at this instant,
the only instant in my life when I defied its power. I struggled with
my adviser, repeating, 'I am not the wretch you take me for; I am not
Murad the Unlucky.' He fled from the danger himself: I remained, and in
a few seconds afterwards a ball reached me, and I fell senseless on the
sand.

"The ball was cut out of my body by an awkward surgeon, who gave me ten
times more pain than was necessary. He was particularly hurried, at
this time, because the army had just received orders to march in a few
hours, and all was confusion in the camp. My wound was excessively
painful, and the fear of being left behind with those who were deemed
incurable added to my torments. Perhaps, if I had kept myself quiet, I
might have escaped some of the evils I afterwards endured; but, as I
have repeatedly told you, gentlemen, it was my ill fortune never to be
able to judge what was best to be done, till the time for prudence was
past.

"During that day, when my fever was at the height, and when my orders
were to keep my bed, contrary to my natural habits of indolence, I rose
a hundred times, and went out of my tent in the very heat of the day,
to satisfy my curiosity as to the number of the tents which had not
been struck, and of the soldiers who had not yet marched. The orders to
march were tardily obeyed, and many hours elapsed before our encampment
was raised. Had I submitted to my surgeon's orders, I might have been
in a state to accompany the most dilatory of the stragglers; I could
have borne, perhaps, the slow motion of a litter, on which some of the
sick were transported; but in the evening, when the surgeon came to
dress my wounds, he found me in such a situation that it was scarcely
possible to remove me.

"He desired a party of soldiers, who were left to bring up the rear, to
call for me the next morning. They did so; but they wanted to put me
upon the mule which I recollected, by a white streak on its back, to be
the cursed animal that had kicked me whilst I was looking for the ring.
I could not be prevailed upon to go upon this unlucky animal. I tried
to persuade the soldiers to carry me, and they took me a little way;
but, soon growing weary of their burden, they laid me down on the sand,
pretending that they were going to fill a skin with water at a spring
they had discovered, and bade me lie still, and wait for their return.

"I waited and waited, longing for the water to moisten my parched lips;
but no water came,--no soldiers returned; and there I lay, for several
hours, expecting every moment to breathe my last. I made no effort to
move, for I was now convinced my hour was come, and that it was the
will of Mahomet that I should perish in this miserable manner, and lie
unburied like a dog; a death, thought I, worthy of Murad the Unlucky.

"My forebodings were not this time just; a detachment of English
soldiers passed near the place where I lay: my groans were heard by
them, and they humanely came to my assistance. They carried me with
them, dressed my wound, and treated me with the utmost tenderness.
Christians though they were, I must acknowledge that I had reason to
love them better than any of the followers of Mahomet, my good brother
only excepted.

"Under their care I recovered; but scarcely had I regained my strength
before I fell into new disasters. It was hot weather, and my thirst was
excessive. I went out with a party, in hopes of finding a spring of
water. The English soldiers began to dig for a well, in a place pointed
out to them by one of their men of science. I was not inclined to such
hard labor, but preferred sauntering on in search of a spring. I saw at
a distance something that looked like a pool of water; and I pointed it
out to my companions. Their man of science warned me by his interpreter
not to trust to this deceitful appearance; for that such were common in
this country, and that, when I came close to the spot, I should find no
water there. He added that it was at a greater distance than I
imagined; and that I should, in all probability, be lost in the desert,
if I attempted to follow this phantom.

"I was so unfortunate as not to attend to his advice: I set out in
pursuit of this accursed delusion, which assuredly was the work of evil
spirits, who clouded my reason, and allured me into their dominion. I
went on, hour after hour, in expectation continually of reaching the
object of my wishes; but it fled faster than I pursued, and I
discovered at last that the Englishman, who had doubtless gained his
information from the people of the country, was right; and that the
shining appearance, which I had taken for water, was a mere deception.

"I was now exhausted with fatigue: I looked back in vain after the
companions I had left; I could see neither men, animals, nor any trace
of vegetation in the sandy desert. I had no resource but, weary as I
was, to measure back my footsteps, which were imprinted in the sand.

"I slowly and sorrowfully traced them as my guides in this unknown
land. Instead of yielding to my indolent inclinations, I ought,
however, to have made the best of my way back, before the evening
breeze sprung up. I felt the breeze rising, and, unconscious of my
danger, I rejoiced, and opened my bosom to meet it; but what was my
dismay when I saw that the wind swept before it all trace of my
footsteps in the sand. I knew not which way to proceed; I was struck
with despair, tore my garments, threw off my turban, and cried aloud;
but neither human voice nor echo answered me. The silence was dreadful.
I had tasted no food for many hours, and I now became sick and faint. I
recollected that I had put a supply of opium into the folds of my
turban; but, alas! when I took my turban up, I found that the opium had
fallen out. I searched for it in vain on the sand, where I had thrown
the turban.

"I stretched myself out upon the ground, and yielded without further
struggle to my evil destiny. What I suffered from thirst, hunger, and
heat cannot be described! At last I fell into a sort of trance, during
which images of various kinds seemed to flit before my eyes. How long I
remained in this state I know not; but I remember that I was brought to
my senses by a loud shout, which came from persons belonging to a
caravan returning from Mecca. This was a shout of joy for their safe
arrival at a certain spring, well known to them in this part of the
desert.

"The spring was not a hundred yards from the spot where I lay; yet,
such had been the fate of Murad the Unlucky, that he missed the
reality, whilst he had been hours in pursuit of the phantom. Feeble and
spiritless as I was, I sent forth as loud a cry as I could, in hopes of
obtaining assistance; and I endeavored to crawl to the place from which
the voices appeared to come. The caravan rested for a considerable time
whilst the slaves filled the skins with water, and whilst the camels
took in their supply. I worked myself on towards them; yet,
notwithstanding my efforts, I was persuaded that, according to my usual
ill fortune, I should never be able to make them hear my voice. I saw
them mount their camels! I took off my turban, unrolled it, and waved
it in the air. My signal was seen! The caravan came towards me!

"I had scarcely strength to speak: a slave gave me some water; and,
after I had drunk, I explained to them who I was, and how I came into
this situation.

"Whilst I was speaking, one of the travellers observed the purse which
hung to my girdle: it was the same the merchant, for whom I recovered
the ring, had given to me; I had carefully preserved it, because the
initials of my benefactor's name, and a passage from the Koran, were
worked upon it. When he gave it to me, he said that perhaps we should
meet again in some other part of the world, and he should recognize me
by this token. The person who now took notice of the purse was his
brother; and when I related to him how I had obtained it, he had the
goodness to take me under his protection. He was a merchant, who was
now going with the caravan to Grand Cairo: he offered to take me with
him, and I willingly accepted the proposal, promising to serve him as
faithfully as any of his slaves. The caravan proceeded, and I was
carried with it."

II.

"The merchant, who was become my master, treated me with great
kindness; but, on hearing me relate the whole series of my unfortunate
adventures, he exacted a promise from me, that I would do nothing
without first consulting him. 'Since you are so unlucky, Murad,' said
he, 'that you always choose for the worst when you choose for yourself,
you should trust entirely to the judgment of a wiser or a more
fortunate friend.'

"I fared well in the service of this merchant, who was a man of a mild
disposition, and who was so rich that he could afford to be generous to
all his dependants. It was my business to see his camels loaded and
unloaded at proper places, to count his bales of merchandise, and to
take care that they were not mixed with those of his companions. This I
carefully did, till the day we arrived at Alexandria; when, unluckily,
I neglected to count the bales, taking it for granted that they were
all right, as I had found them so the preceding day. However, when we
were to go on board the vessel that was to take us to Cairo, I
perceived that three bales of cotton were missing.

"I ran to inform my master, who, though a good deal provoked at my
negligence, did not reproach me as I deserved. The public crier was
immediately sent round the city, to offer a reward for the recovery of
the merchandise; and it was restored by one of the merchants' slaves,
with whom we had travelled. The vessel was now under sail; my master
and I and the bales of cotton were obliged to follow in a boat; and
when we were taken on board, the captain declared he was so loaded that
he could not tell where to stow the bales of cotton. After much
difficulty, he consented to let them remain upon deck: and I promised
my master to watch them night and day.

"We had a prosperous voyage, and were actually in sight of shore, which
the captain said we could not fail to reach early the next morning. I
stayed, as usual, this night upon deck; and solaced myself by smoking
my pipe. Ever since I had indulged in this practice at the camp at El
Arish, I could not exist without opium and tobacco. I suppose that my
reason was this night a little clouded with the dose I took; but,
towards midnight, I was sobered by terror. I started up from the deck
on which I had stretched myself; my turban was in flames; the bale of
cotton on which I had rested was all on fire. I awakened two sailors,
who were fast asleep on deck. The consternation became general, and the
confusion increased the danger. The captain and my master were the most
active, and suffered the most in extinguishing the flames: my master
was terribly scorched.

"For my part, I was not suffered to do anything; the captain ordered
that I should be bound to the mast; and, when at last the flames were
extinguished, the passengers, with one accord, besought him to keep me
bound hand and foot, lest I should be the cause of some new disaster.
All that had happened was, indeed, occasioned by my ill luck. I had
laid my pipe down, when I was falling asleep, upon the bale of cotton
that was beside me. The fire from my pipe fell out, and set the cotton
in flames. Such was the mixture of rage and terror with which I had
inspired the whole crew, that I am sure they would have set me ashore
on a desert island, rather than have had me on board for a week longer.
Even my humane master, I could perceive, was secretly impatient to get
rid of Murad the Unlucky, and his evil fortune.

"You may believe that I was heartily glad when we landed, and when I
was unbound. My master put a purse containing fifty sequins into my
hand, and bade me farewell. 'Use this money prudently, Murad, if you
can,' said he, 'and perhaps your fortune may change.' Of this I had
little hopes, but determined to lay out my money as prudently as
possible.

"As I was walking through the streets of Grand Cairo, considering how I
should lay out my fifty sequins to the greatest advantage, I was
stopped by one who called me by my name, and asked me if I could
pretend to have forgotten his face. I looked steadily at him, and
recollected to my sorrow that he was the Jew Rachub, from whom I had
borrowed certain sums of money at the camp at El Arish. What brought
him to Grand Cairo, except it was my evil destiny, I cannot tell. He
would not quit me; he would take no excuses; he said he knew that I had
deserted twice, once from the Turkish and once from the English army;
that I was not entitled to any pay; and that he could not imagine it
possible that my brother Saladin would own me, or pay my debts.

"I replied, for I was vexed by the insolence of this Jewish dog, that I
was not, as he imagined, a beggar; that I had the means of paying him
my just debt, but that I hoped he would not extort from me all that
exorbitant interest which none but a Jew could exact. He smiled, and
answered that, if a Turk loved opium better than money, this was no
fault of his; that he had supplied me with what I loved best in the
world; and that I ought not to complain, when he expected I should
return the favor.

"I will not weary you, gentlemen, with all the arguments that passed
between me and Rachub. At last we compromised matters; he would take
nothing less than the whole debt: but he let me have at a very cheap
rate a chest of second-hand clothes, by which he assured me I might
make my fortune. He brought them to Grand Cairo, he said, for the
purpose of selling them to slave-merchants, who at this time of the
year were in want of them to supply their slaves; but he was in haste
to get home to his wife and family, at Constantinople, and therefore he
was willing to make over to a friend the profits of this speculation. I
should have distrusted Rachub's professions of friendship and
especially of disinterestedness; but he took me with him to the khan,
where his goods were, and unlocked the chest of clothes to show them to
me. They were of the richest and finest materials, and had been but
little worn. I could not doubt the evidence of my senses; the bargain
was concluded, and the Jew sent porters to my inn with the chest.

"The next day I repaired to the public market-place; and, when my
business was known, I had choice of customers before night: my chest
was empty,--and my purse was full. The profit I made, upon the sale of
these clothes, was so considerable, that I could not help feeling
astonishment at Rachub's having brought himself so readily to
relinquish them.

"A few days after I had disposed of the contents of my chest, a
Damascene merchant, who had bought two suits of apparel from me, told
me, with a very melancholy face, that both the female slaves who had
put on these clothes were sick. I could not conceive that the clothes
were the cause of their sickness; but soon afterwards, as I was
crossing the market, I was attacked by at least a dozen merchants, who
made similar complaints. They insisted upon knowing how I came by the
garments, and demanded whether I had worn any of them myself. This day
I had for the first time indulged myself with wearing a pair of yellow
slippers, the only finery I had reserved for myself out of all the
tempting goods. Convinced by my wearing these slippers that I could
have had no insidious designs, since I shared the danger, whatever it
might be, the merchants were a little pacified; but what was my terror
and remorse the next day, when one of them came to inform me that
plague-boils had broken out under the arms of all the slaves who had
worn this pestilential apparel! On looking carefully into the chest, we
found the word Smyrna written, and half effaced, upon the lid. Now, the
plague had for some time raged at Smyrna; and, as the merchants
suspected, these clothes had certainly belonged to persons who had died
of that distemper. This was the reason why the Jew was willing to sell
them to me so cheap; and it was for this reason that he would not stay
at Grand Cairo himself to reap _the profits of his speculation_.
Indeed, if I had paid attention to it at the proper time, a slight
circumstance might have revealed the truth to me. Whilst I was
bargaining with the Jew, before he opened the chest, he swallowed a
large dram of brandy, and stuffed his nostrils with sponge dipped in
vinegar: this he told me he did to prevent his perceiving the smell of
musk, which always threw him into convulsions.

"The horror I felt, when I discovered that I had spread the infection
of the plague, and that I had probably caught it myself, overpowered my
senses; a cold dew spread over all my limbs, and I fell upon the lid of
the fatal chest in a swoon. It is said that fear disposes people to
take the infection; however this may be, I sickened that evening, and
soon was in a raging fever. It was worse for me whenever the delirium
left me, and I could reflect upon the miseries my ill fortune had
occasioned. In my first lucid interval, I looked round and saw that I
had been removed from the khan to a wretched hut. An old woman, who was
smoking her pipe in the farthest corner of my room, informed me that I
had been sent out of the town of Grand Cairo by order of the cadi, to
whom the merchants had made their complaint. The fatal chest was burnt,
and the house in which I had lodged razed to the ground. 'And if it had
not been for me,' continued the old woman, 'you would have been dead,
probably, at this instant; but I have made a vow to our great prophet,
that I would never neglect an opportunity of doing a good action:
therefore, when you were deserted by all the world, I took care of you.
Here, too, is your purse, which I saved from the rabble; and, what is
more difficult, from the officers of justice: I will account to you for
every para that I have expended; and will moreover tell you the reason
of my making such an extraordinary vow.'

"As I believed that this benevolent old woman took great pleasure in
talking, I made an inclination of my head to thank her for her promised
history, and she proceeded; but I must confess I did not listen with
all the attention her narrative doubtless deserved. Even curiosity, the
strongest passion of us Turks, was dead within me. I have no
recollection of the old woman's story. It is as much as I can do to
finish my own.

"The weather became excessively hot; it was affirmed, by some of the
physicians, that this heat would prove fatal to their patients; but,
contrary to the prognostics of the physicians, it stopped the progress
of the plague. I recovered, and found my purse much lightened by my
illness. I divided the remainder of my money with my humane nurse, and
sent her out into the city, to inquire how matters were going on.

"She brought me word that the fury of the plague had much abated; but
that she had met several funerals, and that she had heard many of the
merchants cursing the folly of Murad the Unlucky, who, as they said,
had brought all this calamity upon the inhabitants of Cairo. Even
fools, they say, learn by experience. I took care to burn the bed on
which I had lain, and the clothes I had worn: I concealed my real name,
which I knew would inspire detestation, and gamed admittance, with a
crowd of other poor wretches, into a lazaretto, where I performed
quarantine, and offered up prayers daily for the sick.

"When I thought it was impossible I could spread the infection, I took
my passage home. I was eager to get away from Grand Cairo, where I knew
I was an object of execration. I had a strange fancy haunting my mind;
I imagined that all my misfortunes, since I left Constantinople, had
arisen from my neglect of the talisman upon the beautiful china vase. I
dreamed three times, when I was recovering from the plague, that a
genius appeared to me, and said, in a reproachful tone, 'Murad, where
is the vase that was intrusted to thy care?'

"This dream operated strongly upon my imagination. As soon as we
arrived at Constantinople, which we did, to my great surprise, without
meeting with any untoward accidents, I went in search of my brother
Saladin, to inquire for my vase. He no longer lived in the house in
which I left him, and I began to be apprehensive that he was dead; but
a porter, hearing my inquiries, exclaimed, 'Who is there in
Constantinople that is ignorant of the dwelling of Saladin the Lucky?
Come with me, and I will show it to you.'

"The mansion to which he conducted me looked so magnificent, that I was
almost afraid to enter lest there should be some mistake. But, whilst I
was hesitating, the doors opened, and I heard my brother Saladin's
voice. He saw me almost at the same instant that I fixed my eyes upon
him, and immediately sprang forward to embrace me. He was the same good
brother as ever, and I rejoiced in his prosperity with all my heart.
'Brother Saladin,' said I, 'can you now doubt that some men are born to
be fortunate, and others to be unfortunate? How often you used to
dispute this point with me!'

"'Let us not dispute it now in the public street,' said he, smiling;
'but come in and refresh yourself, and we will consider the question
afterwards at leisure.'

"'No, my dear brother,' said I, drawing back, 'you are too good: Murad
the Unlucky shall not enter your house, lest he should draw down
misfortunes upon you and yours. I come only to ask for my vase.'

"'It is safe,' cried he; 'come in, and you shall see it; but I will not
give it up till I have you in my house. I have none of these
superstitious fears: pardon me the expression, but I have none of these
superstitious fears.'

"I yielded, entered his house, and was astonished at all I saw! My
brother did not triumph in his prosperity; but, on the contrary, seemed
intent only upon making me forget my misfortunes: he listened to the
account of them with kindness, and obliged me by the recital of his
history; which was, I must acknowledge, far less wonderful than my own.
He seemed, by his own account, to have grown rich in the common course
of things; or, rather, by his own prudence. I allowed for his
prejudices, and, unwilling to dispute further with him, said, 'You must
remain of your opinion, brother; and I of mine: you are Saladin the
Lucky, and I Murad the Unlucky; and so we shall remain to the end of
our lives.'

"I had not been in his house four days when an accident happened, which
showed how much I was in the right. The favorite of the sultan, to whom
he had formerly sold his china vase, though her charms were now
somewhat faded by time, still retained her power, and her taste for
magnificence. She commissioned my brother to bespeak for her, at
Venice, the most splendid looking-glass that money could purchase. The
mirror, after many delays and disappointments, at length arrived at my
brother's house. He unpacked it, and sent to let the lady know it was
in perfect safety. It was late in the evening, and she ordered it
should remain where it was that night; and that it should be brought to
the seraglio the next morning. It stood in a sort of antechamber to the
room in which I slept; and with it were left some packages, containing
glass chandeliers for an unfinished saloon in my brother's house.
Saladin charged all his domestics to be vigilant this night, because he
had money to a great amount by him, and there had been frequent
robberies in our neighborhood. Hearing these orders, I resolved to be
in readiness at a moment's warning. I laid my scimitar beside me upon a
cushion; and left my door half open, that I might hear the slightest
noise in the antechamber or the great staircase. About midnight I was
suddenly awakened by a noise in the antechamber. I started up, seized
my scimitar, and the instant I got to the door, saw, by the light of
the lamp which was burning in the room, a man standing opposite to me,
with a drawn sword in his hand. I rushed forward, demanding what he
wanted, and received no answer; but, seeing him aim at me with his
scimitar, I gave him, as I thought, a deadly blow. At this instant, I
heard a great crash; and the fragments of the looking-glass, which I
had shivered, fell at my feet. At the same moment something black
brushed by my shoulder: I pursued it, stumbled over the packages of
glass, and rolled over them down the stairs.

"My brother came out of his room, to inquire the cause of all this
disturbance; and when he saw the fine mirror broken, and me lying
amongst the glass chandeliers at the bottom of the stairs, he could not
forbear exclaiming, 'Well, brother! you are indeed Murad the Unlucky.'

"When the first emotion was over, he could not, however, forbear
laughing at my situation. With a degree of goodness, which made me a
thousand times more sorry for the accident, he came down stairs to help
me up, gave me his hand, and said, 'Forgive me, if I was angry with you
at first. I am sure you did not mean to do me any injury; but tell me
how all this has happened.'

"Whilst Saladin was speaking, I heard the same kind of noise which had
alarmed me in the antechamber; but, on looking back, I saw only a black
pigeon, which flew swiftly by me, unconscious of the mischief he had
occasioned. This pigeon I had unluckily brought into the house the
preceding day; and had been feeding and trying to tame it for my young
nephews. I little thought it would be the cause of such disasters. My
brother, though he endeavored to conceal his anxiety from me, was much
disturbed at the idea of meeting the favorite's displeasure, who would
certainly be grievously disappointed by the loss of her splendid
looking-glass. I saw that I should inevitably be his ruin, if I
continued in his house; and no persuasions could prevail upon me to
prolong my stay. My generous brother, seeing me determined to go, said
to me, 'A factor, whom I have employed for some years to sell
merchandise for me, died a few days ago. Will you take his place? I am
rich enough to bear any little mistakes you may fall into, from
ignorance of business; and you will have a partner who is able and
willing to assist you.'

"I was touched to the heart by this kindness, especially at such a time
as this. He sent one of his slaves with me to the shop in which you now
see me, gentlemen. The slave, by my brother's directions, brought with
us my china vase, and delivered it safely to me, with this message:
'The scarlet dye that was found in this vase, and in its fellow, was
the first cause of Saladin's making the fortune he now enjoys: he
therefore does no more than justice, in sharing that fortune with his
brother Murad.'

"I was now placed in as advantageous a situation as possible; but my
mind was ill at ease, when I reflected that the broken mirror might be
my brother's ruin. The lady by whom it had been bespoken was, I well
knew, of a violent temper; and this disappointment was sufficient to
provoke her to vengeance. My brother sent me word this morning,
however, that, though her displeasure was excessive, it was in my power
to prevent any ill consequences that might ensue. 'In my power!' I
exclaimed; 'then, indeed, I am happy! Tell my brother there is nothing
I will not do to show him my gratitude, and to save him from the
consequences of my folly.'

"The slave who was sent by my brother seemed unwilling to name what was
required of me, saying that his master was afraid I should not like to
grant the request. I urged him to speak freely, and he then told me the
favorite declared nothing would make her amends for the loss of the
mirror but the fellow vase to that which she had bought from Saladin.
It was impossible for me to hesitate; gratitude for my brother's
generous kindness overcame my superstitious obstinacy; and I sent him
word I would carry the vase to him myself.

"I took it down this evening from the shelf on which it stood; it was
covered with dust, and I washed it, but unluckily, in endeavoring to
clean the inside from the remains of the scarlet powder, I poured hot
water into it, and immediately I heard a simmering noise, and my vase,
in a few instants, burst asunder with a loud explosion. These
fragments, alas! are all that remain. The measure of my misfortunes is
now completed! Can you wonder, gentlemen, that I bewail my evil
destiny? Am I not justly called Murad the Unlucky? Here end all my
hopes in this world! Better would it have been if I had died long ago!
Better that I had never been born! Nothing I ever have done or
attempted has prospered. Murad the Unlucky is my name, and ill fate has
marked me for her own."

III.

The lamentations of Murad were interrupted by the entrance of Saladin.
Having waited in vain for some hours, he now came to see if any
disaster had happened to his brother Murad. He was surprised at the
sight of the two pretended merchants, and could not refrain from
exclamations on beholding the broken vase. However, with his usual
equanimity and good-nature, he began to console Murad; and, taking up
the fragments, examined them carefully, one by one joined them together
again, found that none of the edges of the china were damaged, and
declared he could have it mended so as to look as well as ever.

Murad recovered his spirits upon this. "Brother," said he, "I comfort
myself for being Murad the Unlucky, when I reflect that you are Saladin
the Lucky. See, gentlemen," continued he, turning to the pretended
merchants, "scarcely has this most fortunate of men been five minutes
in company before he gives a happy turn to affairs. His presence
inspires joy: I observe your countenances, which had been saddened by
my dismal history, have brightened up since he has made his appearance.
Brother, I wish you would make these gentlemen some amends for the time
they have wasted in listening to my catalogue of misfortunes, by
relating your history, which, I am sure, they will find rather more
exhilarating."

Saladin consented, on condition that the strangers would accompany him
home, and partake of a social banquet. They at first repeated the
former excuse of their being obliged to return to their inn; but at
length the sultan's curiosity prevailed, and he and his vizier went
home with Saladin the Lucky, who, after supper, related his history in
the following manner:--

"My being called Saladin the Lucky first inspired me with confidence in
myself; though I own that I cannot remember any extraordinary instances
of good luck in my childhood. An old nurse of my mother's, indeed,
repeated to me, twenty times a day, that nothing I undertook could fail
to succeed, because I was Saladin the Lucky. I became presumptuous and
rash; and my nurse's prognostics might have effectually prevented their
accomplishment, had I not, when I was about fifteen, been roused to
reflection during a long confinement, which was the consequence of my
youthful conceit and imprudence.

"At this time there was at the Porte a Frenchman, an ingenious
engineer, who was employed and favored by the sultan, to the great
astonishment of many of my prejudiced countrymen. On the grand
seignior's birthday he exhibited some extraordinarily fine fireworks;
and I, with numbers of the inhabitants of Constantinople, crowded to
see them. I happened to stand near the place where the Frenchman was
stationed; the crowd pressed upon him, and I amongst the rest; he
begged we would, for our own sakes, keep at a greater distance, and
warned us that we might be much hurt by the combustibles which he was
using. I, relying upon my good fortune, disregarded all these cautions;
and the consequence was, that as I touched some of the materials
prepared for the fireworks, they exploded, dashed me upon the ground
with great violence, and I was terribly burnt.

"This accident, gentlemen, I consider as one of the most fortunate
circumstances of my life; for it checked and corrected the presumption
of my temper. During the time I was confined to my bed, the French
gentleman came frequently to see me. He was a very sensible man; and
the conversations he had with me enlarged my mind, and cured me of many
foolish prejudices, especially of that which I had been taught to
entertain, concerning the predominance of what is called luck, or
fortune, in human affairs. 'Though you are called Saladin the Lucky,'
said he, 'you find that your neglect of prudence has nearly brought you
to the grave even in the bloom of youth. Take my advice, and
henceforward trust more to prudence than to fortune. Let the multitude,
if they will, call you Saladin the Lucky; but call yourself, and make
yourself, Saladin the Prudent.'

"These words left an indelible impression on my mind, and gave a new
turn to my thoughts and character. My brother, Murad, has doubtless
told you that our difference of opinion, on the subject of
predestination, produced between us frequent arguments; but we could
never convince one another, and we each have acted, through life, in
consequence of our different beliefs. To this I attribute my success
and his misfortunes.

"The first rise of my fortune, as you have probably heard from Murad,
was owing to the scarlet dye, which I brought to perfection with
infinite difficulty. The powder, it is true, was accidentally found by
me in our china vases; but there it might have remained to this
instant, useless, if I had not taken the pains to make it useful. I
grant that we can only partially foresee and command events; yet on the
use we make of our own powers, I think, depends our destiny. But,
gentlemen, you would rather hear my adventures, perhaps, than my
reflections; and I am truly concerned, for your sakes, that I have no
wonderful events to relate. I am sorry I cannot tell you of my having
been lost in a sandy desert. I have never had the plague, nor even been
shipwrecked: I have been all my life an inhabitant of Constantinople,
and have passed my time in a very quiet and uniform manner.

"The money I received from the sultan's favorite for my china vase, as
my brother may have told you, enabled me to trade on a more extensive
scale. I went on steadily with my business; and made it my whole study
to please my employers, by all fair and honorable means. This industry
and civility succeeded beyond my expectations: in a few years, I was
rich for a man in my way of business.

"I will not proceed to trouble you with the journal of a petty
merchant's life; I pass on to the incident which made a considerable
change in my affairs.

"A terrible fire broke out near the walls of the grand seignior's
seraglio: as you are strangers, gentlemen, you may not have heard of
this event, though it produced so great a sensation in Constantinople.
The vizier's superb palace was utterly consumed; and the melted lead
poured down from the roof of the mosque of St. Sophia. Various were the
opinions formed by my neighbors respecting the cause of the
conflagration. Some supposed it to be a punishment for the sultan's
having neglected, one Friday, to appear at the mosque of St. Sophia;
others considered it as a warning sent by Mahomet, to dissuade the
Porte from persisting in a war in which we were just engaged. The
generality, however, of the coffee-house politicians contented
themselves with observing that it was the will of Mahomet that the
palace should be consumed. Satisfied by this supposition, they took no
precaution to prevent similar accidents in their own houses. Never were
fires so common in the city as at this period; scarcely a night passed
without our being wakened by the cry of fire.

"These frequent fires were rendered still more dreadful by villains,
who were continually on the watch to increase the confusion by which
they profited, and to pillage the houses of the sufferers. It was
discovered that these incendiaries frequently skulked, towards evening,
in the neighborhood of the bezestein, where the richest merchants store
their goods; some of these wretches were detected in throwing
_coundaks_, or matches, into the windows; and if these combustibles
remained a sufficient time, they could not fail to set the house on
fire.

"Notwithstanding all these circumstances, many even of those who had
property to preserve continued to repeat, 'It is the will of Mahomet,'
and consequently to neglect all means of preservation. I, on the
contrary, recollecting the lesson I had learned from the sensible
foreigner, neither suffered my spirits to sink with superstitious fears
of ill luck, nor did I trust presumptuously to my good fortune. I took
every possible means to secure myself. I never went to bed without
having seen that all the lights and fires in the house were
extinguished, and that I had a supply of water in the cistern. I had
likewise learned from my Frenchman that wet mortar was the most
effectual thing for stopping the progress of flames: I therefore had a
quantity of mortar made up in one of my outhouses, which I could use at
a moment's warning. These precautions were all useful to me: my own
house, indeed, was never actually on fire, but the houses of my
next-door neighbors were no less than five times in flames, in the
course of one winter. By my exertions, or rather by my precautions,
they suffered but little damage; and all my neighbors looked upon me as
their deliverer and friend: they loaded me with presents, and offered
more, indeed, than I would accept. All repeated that I was Saladin the
Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed, feeling more ambitious of being
called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus that what we call modesty is
often only a more refined species of pride. But to proceed with my
story.

"One night I had been later than usual at supper, at a friend's house:
none but the watch were in the streets, and even they, I believe, were
asleep.

"As I passed one of the conduits, which convey water to the city, I
heard a trickling noise; and, upon examination, I found that the cock
of the water-spout was half turned, so that the water was running out.
I turned it back to its proper place, thought it had been left unturned
by accident, and walked on; but I had not proceeded far before I came
to another spout and another, which were in the same condition. I was
convinced that this could not be the effect merely of accident, and
suspected that some ill-intentioned persons designed to let out and
waste the water of the city, that there might be none to extinguish any
fire that should break out in the course of the night.

"I stood still for a few moments, to consider how it would be most
prudent to act. It would be impossible for me to run to all parts of
the city, that I might stop the pipes that were running to waste. I
first thought of wakening the watch and the firemen, who were most of
them slumbering at their stations; but I reflected that they were
perhaps not to be trusted, and that they were in a confederacy with the
incendiaries; otherwise, they would certainly, before this hour, have
observed and stopped the running of the sewers in their neighborhood. I
determined to waken a rich merchant, called Damat Zade, who lived near
me, and who had a number of slaves whom he could send to different
parts of the city, to prevent mischief, and give notice to the
inhabitants of their danger.

"He was a very sensible, active man, and one that could easily be
wakened: he was not, like some Turks, an hour in recovering their
lethargic senses. He was quick in decision and action; and his slaves
resembled their master. He despatched a messenger immediately to the
grand vizier, that the sultan's safety might be secured; and sent
others to the magistrates, in each quarter of Constantinople. The large
drums in the janissary aga's tower beat to rouse the inhabitants; and
scarcely had this been heard to beat half an hour before the fire broke
out in the lower apartments of Damat Zade's house, owing to a
_coundak_, which had been left behind one of the doors.

"The wretches who had prepared the mischief came to enjoy it, and to
pillage; but they were disappointed. Astonished to find themselves
taken into custody, they could not comprehend how their designs had
been frustrated. By timely exertions, the fire in my friend's house was
extinguished; and though fires broke out, during the night, in many
parts of the city, but little damage was sustained, because there was
time for precautions; and by the stopping of the spouts, sufficient
water was preserved. People were awakened, and warned of the danger,
and they consequently escaped unhurt.

"The next day, as soon as I made my appearance at the bezestein, the
merchants crowded round, called me their benefactor, and the preserver
of their lives and fortunes. Damat Zade, the merchant whom I had
awakened the preceding night, presented to me a heavy purse of gold,
and put upon my finger a diamond ring of considerable value; each of
the merchants followed his example, in making me rich presents: the
magistrates also sent me tokens of their approbation; and the grand
vizier sent me a diamond of the first water, with a line written by his
own hand: 'To the man who has saved Constantinople.' Excuse me,
gentlemen, for the vanity I seem to show in mentioning these
circumstances. You desired to hear my history, and I cannot therefore
omit the principal circumstance of my life. In the course of
four-and-twenty hours, I found myself raised, by the munificent
gratitude of the inhabitants of this city, to a state of affluence far
beyond what I had ever dreamed of attaining.

"I now took a house suited to my circumstances, and bought a few
slaves. As I was carrying my slaves home, I was met by a Jew, who
stopped me, saying, in his language, 'My lord, I see, has been
purchasing slaves: I could clothe them cheaply.' There was something
mysterious in the manner of this Jew, and I did not like his
countenance; but I considered that I ought not to be governed by
caprice in my dealings, and that, if this man could really clothe my
slaves more cheaply than another, I ought not to neglect his offer
merely because I took a dislike to the cut of his beard, the turn of
his eye, or the tone of his voice. I therefore bade the Jew follow me
home, saying that I would consider of his proposal.

"When we came to talk over the matter, I was surprised to find him so
reasonable in his demands. On one point, indeed, he appeared unwilling
to comply. I required not only to see the clothes I was offered, but
also to know how they came into his possession. On this subject he
equivocated; I therefore suspected there must be something wrong. I
reflected what it could be, and judged that the goods had been stolen,
or that they had been the apparel of persons who had died of some
contagious distemper. The Jew showed me a chest, from which he said I
might choose whatever suited me best. I observed, that, as he was going
to unlock the chest, he stuffed his nose with some aromatic herbs. He
told me that he did so to prevent his smelling the musk with which the
chest was perfumed: musk, he said, had an extraordinary effect upon his
nerves. I begged to have some of the herbs which he used himself;
declaring that musk was likewise offensive to me.

"The Jew, either struck by his own conscience, or observing my
suspicions, turned as pale as death. He pretended he had not the right
key, and could not unlock the chest; said he must go in search of it,
and that he would call on me again.

"After he had left me, I examined some writing upon the lid of the
chest, that had been nearly effaced. I made out the word Smyrna, and
this was sufficient to confirm all my suspicions. The Jew returned no
more: he sent some porters to carry away the chest, and I heard nothing
of him for some time, till one day, when I was at the house of Damat
Zade, I saw a glimpse of the Jew passing hastily through one of the
courts, as if he wished to avoid me. 'My friend,' said I to Damat Zade,
'do not attribute my question to impertinent curiosity, or to a desire
to intermeddle with your affairs, if I venture to ask the nature of
your business with the Jew, who has just now crossed your court.'

"'He has engaged to supply me with clothing for my slaves,' replied my
friend, 'cheaper than I can purchase it elsewhere. I have a design to
surprise my daughter, Fatima, on her birthday, with an entertainment in
the pavilion in the garden; and all her female slaves shall appear in
new dresses on the occasion.'

"I interrupted my friend, to tell him what I suspected relative to this
Jew and his chest of clothes. It is certain that the infection of the
plague can be communicated by clothes, not only after months but after
years have elapsed. The merchant resolved to have nothing more to do
with this wretch, who could thus hazard the lives of thousands of his
fellow-creatures for a few pieces of gold: we sent notice of the
circumstance to the cadi, but the cadi was slow in his operations; and,
before he could take the Jew into custody, the cunning fellow had
effected his escape. When his house was searched, he and his chest had
disappeared: we discovered that he sailed for Egypt, and rejoiced that
we had driven him from Constantinople.

"My friend, Damat Zade, expressed the warmest gratitude to me. 'You
formerly saved my fortune: you have now saved my life; and a life yet
dearer than my own, that of my daughter Fatima.'

"At the sound of that name I could not, I believe, avoid showing some
emotion. I had accidentally seen this lady, and I had been captivated
by her beauty, and by the sweetness of her countenance; but as I knew
she was destined to be the wife of another, I suppressed my feeling,
and determined to banish the recollection of the fair Fatima forever
from my imagination. Her father, however, at this instant, threw into
my way a temptation which it required all my fortitude to resist.
'Saladin,' continued he, 'it is but just that you, who have saved our
lives, should share our festivity. Come here on the birthday of my
Fatima: I will place you in a balcony, which overlooks the garden, and
you shall see the whole spectacle. We shall have a _feast of tulips_,
in imitation of that which, as you know, is held in the grand
seignior's gardens. I assure you, the sight will be worth seeing; and
besides, you will have a chance of beholding my Fatima, for a moment,
without her veil.'

"'That,' interrupted I, 'is the thing I most wish to avoid. I dare not
indulge myself in a pleasure which might cost me the happiness of my
life. I will conceal nothing from you, who treat me with so much
confidence. I have already beheld the charming countenance of your
Fatima, but I know that she is destined to be the wife of a happier
man.'

"Damat Zade seemed much pleased by the frankness with which I explained
myself; but he would not give up the idea of my sitting with him, in
the balcony, on the day of the feast of tulips, and I, on my part,
could not consent to expose myself to another view of the charming
Fatima. My friend used every argument, or rather every sort of
persuasion, he could imagine to prevail upon me: he then tried to laugh
me out of my resolution; and, when all failed, he said, in a voice of
anger, 'Go, then, Saladin; I am sure you are deceiving me: you have a
passion for some other woman, and you would conceal it from me, and
persuade me you refuse the favor I offer you from prudence, when, in
fact, it is from indifference and contempt. Why could you not speak the
truth of your heart to me with that frankness with which one friend
should treat another?'

"Astonished at this unexpected charge, and at the anger which flashed
from the eyes of Damat Zade, who till this moment had always appeared
to me a man of a mild and reasonable temper, I was for an instant
tempted to fly into a passion and leave him: but friends, once lost,
are not easily regained. This consideration had power sufficient to
make me command my temper. 'My friend,' replied I, 'we will talk over
this affair to-morrow: you are now angry, and cannot do me justice; but
to-morrow you will be cool: you will then be convinced that I have not
deceived you; and that I have no design but to secure my own happiness
by the most prudent means in my power, by avoiding the sight of the
dangerous Fatima. I have no passion for any other woman.'

"'Then,' said my friend, embracing me, and quitting the tone of anger
which he had assumed only to try my resolution to the utmost,--'then,
Saladin, Fatima is yours.'

"I scarcely dared to believe my senses! I could not express my joy!
'Yes, my friend,' continued the merchant, 'I have tried your prudence
to the utmost; it has been victorious, and I resign my Fatima to you,
certain that you will make her happy. It is true, I had a greater
alliance in view for her: the pacha of Maksoud has demanded her from
me; but I have found, upon private inquiry, he is addicted to the
intemperate use of opium: and my daughter shall never be the wife of
one who is a violent madman one half the day, and a melancholy idiot
during the remainder. I have nothing to apprehend from the pacha's
resentment, because I have powerful friends with the grand vizier who
will oblige him to listen to reason, and to submit quietly to a
disappointment he so justly merits. And now, Saladin, have you any
objection to seeing the feast of tulips?'

"I replied only by falling at the merchant's feet, and embracing his
knees. The feast of tulips came, and on that day I was married to the
charming Fatima! The charming Fatima I continue still to think her,
though she has now been my wife some years. She is the joy and pride of
my heart; and, from our mutual affection, I have experienced more
felicity than from all the other circumstances of my life, which are
called so fortunate. Her father gave me the house in which I now live,
and joined his possessions to ours; so that I have more wealth even
than I desire. My riches, however, give me continually the means of
relieving the wants of others; and therefore I cannot affect to despise
them. I must persuade my brother Murad to share them with me, and to
forget his misfortunes: I shall then think myself completely happy. As
to the sultana's looking-glass, and your broken vase, my dear brother,"
continued Saladin, "we must think of some means--"

"Think no more of the sultana's looking-glass, or of the broken vase,"
exclaimed the sultan, throwing aside his merchant's habit, and showing
beneath it his own imperial vest. "Saladin, I rejoice to have heard,
from your own lips, the history of your life. I acknowledge, vizier, I
have been in the wrong, in our argument," continued the sultan, turning
to his vizier. "I acknowledge that the histories of Saladin the Lucky
and Murad the Unlucky favor your opinion, that prudence has more
influence than chance in human affairs. The success and happiness of
Saladin seem to me to have arisen from his prudence: by that prudence,
Constantinople has been saved from flames, and from the plague. Had
Murad possessed his brother's discretion, he would not have been on the
point of losing his head, for selling rolls which he did not bake: he
would not have been kicked by a mule, or bastinadoed for finding a
ring: he would not have been robbed by one party of soldiers, or shot
by another: he would not have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a
Jew; he would not have set a ship on fire; nor would he have caught the
plague, and spread it through Grand Cairo: he would not have run my
sultana's looking-glass through the body, instead of a robber: he would
not have believed that the fate of his life depended on certain verses
on a china vase: nor would he, at last, have broken this precious
talisman, by washing it with hot water. Henceforward, let Murad the
Unlucky be named Murad the Imprudent: let Saladin preserve the surname
he merits, and be henceforth called Saladin the Prudent."

So spake the sultan, who, unlike the generality of monarchs, could bear
to find himself in the wrong; and could discover his vizier to be in
the right, without cutting off his head. History further informs us
that the sultan offered to make Saladin a pacha, and to commit to him
the government of a province; but Saladin the Prudent declined this
honor, saying he had no ambition, was perfectly happy in his present
situation, and that, when this was the case, it would be folly to
change, because no one can be more than happy. What further adventures
befell Murad the Imprudent are not recorded; it is known only that he
became a daily visitor to the _Teriaky_; and that he died a martyr to
the immoderate use of opium.

THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.

BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

I.

MY LIFE TO ITS CRISIS.

New-Yorkers of to-day see so many processions, and live through so many
sensations, and hurrah for so many heroes in every year, that it is
only the oldest of fogies who tells you of the triumphant procession of
steamboats which, in the year 1824, welcomed General Lafayette on his
arrival from his tour through the country he had so nobly served. But,
if the reader wishes to lengthen out this story, he may button the next
silver-gray friend he meets, and ask him to tell of the broken English
and broken French of the Marquis, of Levasseur, and the rest of them;
of the enthusiasm of the people and the readiness of the visitors, and
he will please bear in mind that of all that am I.

For it so happened that on the morning when, for want of better lions
to show, the mayor and governor and the rest of them took the Marquis
and his secretary, and the rest of them, to see the orphan asylum in
Deering Street,--as they passed into the first ward, after having had
"a little refreshment" in the managers' room, Sally Eaton, the head
nurse, dropped the first courtesy to them, and Sally Eaton, as it
happened, held me screaming in her arms. I had been sent to the asylum
that morning with a paper pinned to my bib, which said my name was
Felix Carter.

"Eet ees verra fine," said the Marquis, smiling blandly.

"Ràvissant!" said Levasseur, and he dropped a five-franc piece into
Sally Eaton's hand. And so the procession of exhibiting managers
talking bad French, and of exhibited Frenchmen talking bad English,
passed on; all but good old Elkanah Ogden,--God bless him!--who
happened to have come there with the governor's party, and who loitered
a minute to talk with Sally Eaton about me.

Years afterwards she told me how the old man kissed me, how his eyes
watered when he asked my story, how she told again of the moment when I
was heard screaming on the doorstep, and how she offered to go and
bring the paper which had been pinned to my bib. But the old man said
it was no matter,--"only we would have called him Marquis," said he,
"if his name was not provided for him. We must not leave him here," he
said; "he shall grow up a farmer's lad, and not a little cockney." And
so, instead of going the grand round of infirmaries, kitchens,
bakeries, and dormitories with the rest, the good old soul went back
into the managers' room, and wrote at the moment a letter to John
Myers, who took care of his wild land in St. Lawrence County for him,
to ask him if Mrs. Myers would not bring up an orphan baby by hand for
him; and if, both together, they would not train this baby till he said
"Stop"; if, on the other hand, he allowed them, in the yearly account,
a hundred dollars each year for the charge.

Anybody who knows how far a hundred dollars goes in the backwoods, in
St. Lawrence County, will know that any settler would be glad to take a
ward so recommended. Anybody who knew Betsy Myers as well as old
Elkanah Ogden did, would know she would have taken any orphan brought
to her door, even if he were not recommended at all.

So it happened, thanks to Lafayette and the city council! that I had
not been a "Child of the Public" a day, before, in its great, clumsy,
liberal way, it had provided for me. I owed my healthy, happy home of
the next fourteen years in the wilderness to those marvellous habits,
which I should else call absurd, with which we lionize strangers.
Because our hospitals and poorhouses are the largest buildings we have,
we entertain the Prince of Wales and Jenny Lind alike, by showing them
crazy people and paupers. Easy enough to laugh at is the display; but
if, dear Public, it happen that by such a habit you ventilate your
Bridewell or your Bedlam, is not the ventilation, perhaps, a
compensation for the absurdity? I do not know if Lafayette was any the
better for his seeing the Deering Street Asylum; but I do know I was.

This is no history of my life. It is only an illustration of one of its
principles. I have no anecdotes of wilderness life to tell, and no
sketch of the lovely rugged traits of John and Betsy Myers,--my real
father and mother. I have no quest for the pretended parents, who threw
me away in my babyhood, to record. They closed accounts with me when
they left me on the asylum steps, and I with them. I grew up with such
schooling as the public gave,--ten weeks in winter always, and ten in
summer, till I was big enough to work on the farm,--better periods of
schools, I hold, than on the modern systems. Mr. Ogden I never saw.
Regularly he allowed for me the hundred a year till I was nine years
old, and then suddenly he died, as the reader perhaps knows. But John
Myers kept me as his son, none the less. I knew no change until, when I
was fourteen, he thought it time for me to see the world, and sent me
to what, in those days, was called a "Manual-Labor School."

There was a theory coming up in those days, wholly unfounded in
physiology, that if a man worked five hours with his hands, he could
study better in the next five. It is all nonsense. Exhaustion is
exhaustion; and if you exhaust a vessel by one stopcock, nothing is
gained or saved by closing that and opening another. The old up-country
theory is the true one. Study ten weeks and chop wood fifteen; study
ten more and harvest fifteen. But the "Manual-Labor School" offered
itself for really no pay, only John Myers and I carried over, I
remember, a dozen barrels of potatoes when I went there with my books.
The school was kept at Roscius, and if I would work in the carpenter's
shop and on the school farm five hours, why they would feed me and
teach me all they knew in what I had of the day beside.

"Felix," said John, as he left me, "I do not suppose this is the best
school in the world, unless you make it so. But I do suppose you can
make it so. If you and I went whining about, looking for the best
school in the world, and for somebody to pay your way through it, I
should die, and you would lose your voice with whining, and we should
not find one after all. This is what the public happens to provide for
you and me. We won't look a gift-horse in the mouth. Get on his back,
Felix; groom him well as you can when you stop, feed him when you can,
and at all events water him well and take care of him well. My last
advice to you, Felix, is to take what is offered you, and never
complain because nobody offers more."

Those words are to be cut on my seal-ring, if I ever have one, and if
Dr. Anthon or Professor Webster will put them into short enough Latin
for me. That is the motto of the "Children of the Public."

John Myers died before that term was out. And my more than mother,
Betsy, went back to her friends in Maine. After the funeral I never saw
them more. How I lived from that moment to what Fausta and I call the
Crisis is nobody's concern. I worked in the shop at the school, or on
the farm. Afterwards I taught school in neighboring districts. I never
bought a ticket in a lottery or a raffle. But whenever there was a
chance to do an honest stroke of work, I did it. I have walked fifteen
miles at night to carry an election return to the "Tribune's" agent at
Gouverneur. I have turned out in the snow to break open the road when
the supervisor could not find another man in the township.

When Sartain started his magazine, I wrote an essay in competition for
his premiums, and the essay earned its hundred dollars. When the
managers of the "Orphan Home," in Baltimore, offered their prizes for
papers on bad boys, I wrote for one of them, and that helped me on four
hard months. There was no luck in those things. I needed the money, and
I put my hook into the pork-barrel,--that is, I trusted the Public. I
never had but one stroke of luck in my life. I wanted a new pair of
boots badly. I was going to walk to Albany, to work in the State
library on the history of the Six Nations, which had an interest for
me. I did not have a dollar. Just then there passed Congress the bill
dividing the surplus revenue. The State of New York received two or
three millions, and divided it among the counties. The county of St.
Lawrence divided it among the townships, and the township of Roscius
divided it among the voters. Two dollars and sixty cents of Uncle Sam's
money came to me, and with that money on my feet I walked to Albany.
That I call luck! How many fools had to assent in an absurdity before I
could study the history of the Six Nations!

But one instance told in detail is better than a thousand told in
general, for the illustration of a principle. So I will detain you no
longer from the history of what Fausta and I call The Crisis.

II.

THE CRISIS.

I was at work as a veneerer in a piano-forte factory at Attica, when
some tariff or other was passed or repealed; there came a great
financial explosion, and our boss, among the rest, failed. He owed us
all six months' wages, and we were all very poor and very blue.
Jonathan Whittemore--a real good fellow, who used to cover the hammers
with leather--came to me the day the shop was closed, and told me he
was going to take the chance to go to Europe. He was going to the
Musical Conservatory at Leipsic, if he could. He would work his passage
out as a stoker. He would wash himself for three or four days at
Bremen, and then get work, if he could, with Voightlander or Von Hammer
till he could enter the Conservatory. By way of preparation for this he
wanted me to sell him my Adler's German Dictionary.

"I've nothing to give you for it, Felix, but this foolish thing,--it is
one of Burrham's tickets,--which I bought in a frolic the night of our
sleigh-ride. I'll transfer it to you."

I told Jonathan he might have the dictionary and welcome. He was doing
a sensible thing, and he would use it twenty times as much as I should.
As for the ticket, he had better keep it. I did not want it. But I saw
he would feel better if I took it,--so he indorsed it to me.

Now the reader must know that this Burrham was a man who had got hold
of one corner of the idea of what the Public could do for its children.
He had found out that there were a thousand people who would be glad to
make the tour of the mountains and the lakes every summer if they could
do it for half price. He found out that the railroad companies were
glad enough to put the price down if they could be sure of the thousand
people. He mediated between the two, and so "cheap excursions" came
into being. They are one of the gifts the Public gives its children.
Rising from step to step, Burrham had, just before the great financial
crisis, conceived the idea of a great cheap combination, in which
everybody was to receive a magazine for a year and a cyclopædia, both
at half price; and not only so, but the money that was gained in the
combination was to be given by lot to two ticket-holders, one a man and
one a woman, for their dowry in marriage. I dare say the reader
remembers the prospectus. It savors too much of the modern "Gift
Enterprise" to be reprinted in full; but it had this honest element,
that everybody got more than he could get for his money in retail. I
have my magazine, the old "Boston Miscellany," to this day, and I just
now looked out Levasseur's name in my cyclopædia; and, as you will see,
I have reason to know that all the other subscribers got theirs.

One of the tickets for these books, for which Whittemore had given five
good dollars, was what he gave to me for my dictionary. And so we
parted. I loitered at Attica, hoping for a place where I could put in
my oar. But my hand was out at teaching, and in a time when all the
world's veneers of different kinds were ripping off, nobody wanted me
to put on more of my kind,--so that my cash ran low. I would not go in
debt,--that is a thing I never did. More honest, I say, to go to the
poorhouse, and make the Public care for its child there, than to borrow
what you cannot pay. But I did not come quite to that, as you shall
see.

I was counting up my money one night,--and it was easily done,--when I
observed that the date on this Burrham order was the 15th of October,
and it occurred to me that it was not quite a fortnight before those
books were to be delivered. They were to be delivered at Castle Garden,
at New York; and the thought struck me that I might go to New York, try
my chance there for work, and at least see the city, which I had never
seen, and get my cyclopædia and magazine. It was the least offer the
Public ever made to me; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and
the least was better than nothing. The plan of so long a journey was
Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it a good deal. Finally I came
to this resolve: I would start in the morning to walk to the
lock-station at Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that night
where they would give me my fare for any work I could do for them, I
would go to Albany. If not, I would walk back to Lockport the next day,
and try my fortune there. This gave me, for my first day's enterprise,
a foot journey of about twenty-five miles. It was out of the question,
with my finances, for me to think of compassing the train.

Every point of life is a pivot on which turns the whole action of our
after-lives; and so, indeed, of the after-lives of the whole world. But
we are so purblind that we only see this of certain special enterprises
and endeavors, which we therefore call critical. I am sure I see it of
that twenty-five miles of fresh autumnal walking. I was in tip-top
spirits. I found the air all oxygen, and everything "all right." I did
not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with the feeling that
every nerve and muscle drew, as in the trades a sailor feels of every
rope and sail. And so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook
appeared where I was to drink; nor hungry till twelve o'clock came,
when I was to dine. I called myself, as I walked, "The Child of Good
Fortune," because the sun was on my right quarter, as the sun should be
when you walk, because the rain of yesterday had laid the dust for me,
and the frost of yesterday had painted the hills for me, and the
northwest wind cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads
just in time to meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him.
And when my walk was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at
Sewell's, which is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a
passing boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all right I
felt myself and called myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader,
in a world made by a loving Father, we are all of us children of good
fortune, if we only have wit enough to find it out, as we stroll along.

The last stroke of good fortune which that day had for me was the
solution of my question whether or no I would go to Babylon. I was to
go if any good-natured boatman would take me. This is a question, Mr.
Millionnaire, more doubtful to those who have not drawn their dividends
than to those who have. As I came down the village street at Brockport,
I could see the horses of a boat bound eastward, led along from level
to level at the last lock; and, in spite of my determination not to
hurry, I put myself on the long, loping trot which the St. Regis
Indians taught me, that I might overhaul this boat before she got under
way at her new speed. I came out on the upper gate of the last lock
just as she passed out from the lower gate. The horses were just put
on, and a reckless boy gave them their first blow after two hours of
rest and corn. As the heavy boat started off under the new motion, I
saw, and her skipper saw at the same instant, that a long new tow-rope
of his, which had lain coiled on deck, was suddenly flying out to its
full length. The outer end of it had been carried upon the lock-side by
some chance or blunder, and there some idle loafer had thrown the
looped bight of it over a hawser-post. The loafers on the lock saw, as
I did, that the rope was running out, and at the call of the skipper
one of them condescended to throw the loop overboard, but he did it so
carelessly that the lazy rope rolled over into the lock, and the loop
caught on one of the valve-irons of the upper gate. The whole was the
business of an instant, of course. But the poor skipper saw, what we
did not, that the coil of the rope on deck was foul, and so entangled
round his long tiller, that ten seconds would do one of three
things,--they would snap his new rope in two, which was a trifle, or
they would wrench his tiller-head off the rudder, which would cost him
an hour to mend, or they would upset those two horses, at this instant
on a trot, and put into the canal the rowdy youngster who had started
them. It was this complex certainty which gave fire to the double cries
which he addressed aft to us on the lock, and forward to the magnet
boy, whose indifferent intelligence at that moment drew him along.

I was stepping upon the gate-head to walk across it. It took but an
instant, not nearly all the ten seconds, to swing down by my arms into
the lock, keeping myself hanging by my hands, to catch with my right
foot the bight of the rope and lift it off the treacherous iron, to
kick the whole into the water, and then to scramble up the wet
lock-side again. I got a little wet, but that was nothing. I ran down
the tow-path, beckoned to the skipper, who sheered his boat up to the
shore, and I jumped on board.

At that moment, reader, Fausta was sitting in a yellow chair on the
deck of that musty old boat, crocheting from a pattern in "Godey's
Lady's Book. I remember it as I remember my breakfast of this morning.
Not that I fell in love with her, nor did I fall in love with my
breakfast; but I knew she was there. And that was the first time I ever
saw her. It is many years since, and I have seen her every day from
that evening to this evening. But I had then no business with her. My
affair was with him whom I have called the skipper, by way of adapting
this fresh-water narrative to ears accustomed to Marryat and Tom
Cringle. I told him that I had to go to New York; that I had not time
to walk, and had not money to pay; that I should like to work my
passage to Troy, if there were any way in which I could; and to ask him
this I had come on board.

"Waal," said the skipper, "'tain't much that is to be done, and Zekiel
and I calc'late to do most of that; and there's that blamed boy
beside--"

This adjective "blamed" is the virtuous oath by which simple people,
who are improving their habits, cure themselves of a stronger epithet,
as men take to flag-root who are abandoning tobacco.

"He ain't good for nothin', as you see," continued the skipper
meditatively, "and you air, anybody can see that," he added. "Ef you've
mind to come to Albany, you can have your vittles, poor enough they are
too; and ef you are willing to ride sometimes, you can ride. I guess
where there's room for three in the bunks there's room for four.
'Tain't everybody would have cast off that blamed hawser-rope as neat
as you did."

From which last remark I inferred, what I learned as a certainty as we
travelled farther, that but for the timely assistance I had rendered
him I should have plead for my passage in vain.

This was my introduction to Fausta. That is to say, she heard the whole
of the conversation. The formal introduction, which is omitted in no
circle of American life to which I have ever been admitted, took place
at tea half an hour after, when Mrs. Grills, who always voyaged with
her husband, brought in the flapjacks from the kitchen. "Miss Jones,"
said Grills, as I came into the meal, leaving Zekiel at the
tiller,--"Miss Jones, this is a young man who is going to Albany. I
don't rightly know how to call your name, sir." I said my name was
Carter. Then he said, "Mr. Carter, this is Miss Jones. Mrs. Grills, Mr.
Carter. Mr. Carter, Mrs. Grills. She is my wife." And so our _partie
carrée_ was established for the voyage.

In these days there are few people who know that a journey on a canal
is the pleasantest journey in the world. A canal has to go through fine
scenery. It cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a
stream. The movement is so easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not
know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded
from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or
you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar,
without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head
lest you lose your hat,--and that reminder teaches you that you are
human. You are glad to know this, and you laugh at the memento. For the
rest of the time you journey, if you are "all right" within, in
Elysium.

I rode one of those horses perhaps two or three hours a day. At locks I
made myself generally useful. At night I walked the deck till one
o'clock, with my pipe or without it, to keep guard against the
lock-thieves. The skipper asked me sometimes, after he found I could
"cipher," to disentangle some of the knots in his bills of lading for
him. But all this made but a little inroad in those lovely autumn days,
and for the eight days that we glided along,--there is one blessed
level which is seventy miles long,--I spent most of my time with
Fausta. We walked together on the tow-path to get our appetites for
dinner and for supper. At sunrise I always made a cruise inland, and
collected the gentians and black alder-berries and colored leaves, with
which she dressed Mrs. Grill's table. She took an interest in my
wretched sketch-book; and though she did not and does not draw well,
she did show me how to spread an even tint, which I never knew before.
I was working up my French. She knew about as much and as little as I
did, and we read Mad Reybaud's Clementine together, guessing at the
hard words, because we had no dictionary.

Dear old Grill offered to talk French at table, and we tried it for a
few days. But it proved he picked up his pronunciation at St.
Catherine's, among the boatmen there, and he would say _shwo_ for
"horses," where the book said _chevaux_. Our talk, on the other hand,
was not Parisian,--but it was not Catherinian,--and we subsided into
English again.

So sped along these blessed eight days. I told Fausta thus much of my
story, that I was going to seek my fortune in New York. She, of course,
knew nothing of me but what she saw, and she told me nothing of her
story.

But I was very sorry when we came into the basin at Troy, for I knew
then that in all reason I must take the steamboat down. And I was very
glad--I have seldom in my life been so glad--when I found that she also
was going to New York immediately. She accepted, very pleasantly, my
offer to carry her trunk to the Isaac Newton for her, and to act as her
escort to the city. For me, my trunk,

                   "in danger tried,"
  Swung in my hand,--"nor left my side."

My earthly possessions were few anywhere. I had left at Attica most of
what they were. Through the voyage I had been man enough to keep on a
working-gear fit for a workman's duty. And old Grills had not yet grace
enough to keep his boat still on Sunday. How one remembers little
things! I can remember each touch of the toilet, as, in that corner of
a dark cuddy where I had shared "Zekiel's" bunk with him, I dressed
myself with one of my two white shirts, and with the change of raiment
which had been tight squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was
the best part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I sold my felt
hat to Zekiel, and appeared with a light travelling-cap. I do not know
how Fausta liked my metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies,
for a day or two after they go through theirs, I felt decidedly cold.

As Carter, the canal man, I had carried Fausta's trunk on board. As Mr.
Carter, I gave her my arm, led her to the gangway of the Newton, took
her passage and mine, and afterwards walked and sat through the
splendid moonlight of the first four hours down the river.

Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast on the boat. Be it
observed that I did not then know her by any other name. She was to go
to an aunt's house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its early
arrival in New York, she would disturb that lady by a premature ringing
at her bell. I had no reason for haste, as the reader knows. The
distribution of the cyclopædias was not to take place till the next
day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct excuse I had to
myself for being in New York at all. I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if
I might not be her escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it
would be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had seen where
she lived, and I thought she seemed relieved to know that she should
not be wholly a stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her
aunt would send no one to meet her.

These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our respective cabins. And
when, the next morning, at that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia
trains and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I rejoiced that
breakfast was not till seven o'clock, that I had two hours more of the
berth, which was luxury compared to Zekiel's bunk,--I turned upon my
other side and slept on.

Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the next thirty-six hours.
For when I went on deck, and sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones
that I was waiting for her, and then took from her the check for her
trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in that treacherous two
hours, some pirate from the pier had stepped on board, had seized the
waiting trunk, left almost alone, while the baggage-master's back was
turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not return to
Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell had long passed and the
breakfast was very cold. I did not then tell it to her till I had seen
her eat her breakfast with an appetite much better than mine. I had
already offered up stairs the largest reward to anybody who would bring
it back which my scanty purse would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who
had sent for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did not choose
to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed news. The officer came before
breakfast was over, and called me from table.

On the whole, his business-like way encouraged me. He had some clews
which I had not thought possible. It was not unlikely that they should
pounce on the trunk before it was broken open. I gave him a written
description of its marks; and when he civilly asked if "my lady" would
give some description of any books or other articles within, I readily
promised that I would call with such a description at the police
station. Somewhat encouraged, I returned to Miss Jones, and, when I led
her from the breakfast-table, told her of her misfortune. I took all
shame to myself for my own carelessness, to which I attributed the
loss. But I told her all that the officer had said to me, and that I
hoped to bring her the trunk at her aunt's before the day was over.

Fausta took my news, however, with a start which frightened me. All her
money, but a shilling or two, was in the trunk. To place money in
trunks is a weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere seen
accounted for. Worse than this, though,--as appeared after a moment's
examination of her travelling-_sac_,--her portfolio in the trunk
contained the letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her her
address in the city. To this address she had no other clew but that her
aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason, had married a few years before a merchant
named Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of whose name and
business this was all she knew. They lived in a numbered street, but
whether it was Fourth Street, or Fifty-fourth, or One Hundred and
Twenty-fourth, or whether it was something between, the poor child had
no idea. She had put up the letter carefully, but had never thought of
the importance of the address. Besides this aunt, she knew no human
being in New York.

"Child of the Public," I said to myself, "what do you do now?" I had
appealed to my great patron in sending for the officer, and on the
whole I felt that my sovereign had been gracious to me, if not yet
hopeful. But now I must rub my lamp again, and ask the genie where the
unknown Mason lived. The genie of course suggested the Directory, and I
ran for it to the clerk's office. But as we were toiling down the pages
of "Masons," and had written off thirteen or fourteen who lived in
numbered streets, Fausta started, looked back at the preface and its
date, flung down her pencil in the only abandonment of dismay in which
I ever saw her, and cried "First of May! They were abroad until May.
They have been abroad since the day they were married!" So that genie
had to put his glories into his pocket, and carry his Directory back to
the office again.

The natural thing to propose was, that I should find for Miss Jones a
respectable boarding-house, and that she should remain there until her
trunk was found, or till she could write to friends who had this fatal
address, and receive an answer. But here she hesitated. She hardly
liked to explain why,--did not explain wholly. But she did not say that
she had no friends who knew this address. She had but few relations in
the world, and her aunt had communicated with her alone since she came
from Europe. As for the boarding-house, "I had rather look for work,"
she said bravely. "I have never promised to pay money when I did not
know how to obtain it; and that"--and here she took out fifty or sixty
cents from her purse--"and that is all now. In respectable
boarding-houses, when people come without luggage, they are apt to ask
for an advance. Or, at least," she added, with some pride, "I am apt to
offer it."

I hastened to ask her to take all my little store; but I had to own
that I had not two dollars. I was sure, however, that my overcoat and
the dress-suit I wore would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly
up some spout. I was sure that I should be at work within a day or two.
At all events, I was certain of the cyclopædia the next day. That
should go to old Gowan's,--in Fulton Street it was then,--"the moral
centre of the intellectual world," in the hour I got it. And at this
moment, for the first time, the thought crossed me, "If mine could only
be the name drawn, so that that foolish $5,000 should fall to me." In
that case I felt that Fausta might live in "a respectable
boarding-house" till she died. Of this, of course, I said nothing, only
that she was welcome to my poor dollar and a half, and that I should
receive the next day some more money that was due me.

"You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, as proudly as before,--"you
forget that I cannot borrow of you any more than of a
boarding-house-keeper. I never borrow. Please God, I never will. It
must be," she added, "that in a Christian city like this there is some
respectable and fit arrangement made for travellers who find themselves
where I am. What that provision is I do not know: but I will find out
what it is before this sun goes down."

I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been fascinated by this
lovely girl before, I now bowed in respect before her dignity and
resolution; and, with my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of
self-respect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as principles
of her life, two principles on which I had always myself tried to live.
The half-expressed habits of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for
me as axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but right and
truth.

I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I expressed my regret that
she would not let me help her,--joined with my certainty that she was
in the right in refusing,--and then, in the only stiff speech I ever
made to her, I said:--

"I am the 'Child of the Public.' If you ever hear my story, you will
say so too. At the least, I can claim this, that I have a right to help
you in your quest as to the way in which the public will help you. Thus
far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom he has intrusted you.
Are you ready, then, to go on shore?"

Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, as if it were the
last link holding her to her old safe world.

  "Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain,
   As what she ne'er might see again."

Then she looked right through me; and if there had been one mean
thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she
said sadly,--

"I have perfect confidence in you, though people would say we were
strangers. Let us go."

And we left the boat together. We declined the invitations of the noisy
hackmen, and walked slowly to Broadway.

We stopped at the station-house for that district, and to the attentive
chief Fausta herself described those contents of her trunk which she
thought would be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her
mother's Bible, at which the chief shook his head; Bibles, alas!
brought nothing at the shops; a soldier's medal, such as were given as
target prizes by the Montgomery regiment, and a little silver canteen,
marked with the device of the same regiment, seemed to him better
worthy of note. Her portfolio was wrought with a cipher, and she
explained to him that she was most eager that this should be recovered.
The pocket-book contained more than one hundred dollars, which she
described, but he shook his head here, and gave her but little hope of
that, if the trunk were once opened. His chief hope was for this
morning.

"And where shall we send to you then, madam?" said he.

I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the impression Fausta had
made upon the officer, in her quiet, simple, lady-like dress and
manner. For myself, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or
bearing, a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have ruined both of us
in our appeal. But, fortunately, I did not disgrace her, and the man
looked at her as if he expected her to say, "Fourteenth Street." What
would she say?

"That depends upon what the time will be. Mr. Carter will call at noon,
and will let you know."

We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more she begged my pardon,
almost with tears; but I told her that if she also had been a "Child of
the Public," she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her
father's officers. I begged her to use me as her protector, and not to
apologize again. Then we laid out the plans which we followed out that
day.

The officer's manner had reassured her, and I succeeded in persuading
her that it was certain we should have the trunk at noon. How much
better to wait, at least so far, before she entered on any of the
enterprises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering herself as a
nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoever would employ her, if only
she could thus secure an honest home till money or till aunt were
found. Once persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I told her
that we must go on, as we did on the canal, and first we must take our
constitutional walk for two hours.

"At least," she said, "our good papa, the Public, gives us wonderful
sights to see, and good walking to our feet, as a better Father has
given us this heavenly sky and this bracing air."

And with those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face
for that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring
a new city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in
print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as
residents always forget to do, and laying up, in short, with those
streets, nearly all the associations which to this day we have with
them.

Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course. I do not know what
she meant to do next; but at ten I said, "Time for French, Miss Jones."
"_Ah oui,_" said she, "_mais où?_" and I had calculated my distances,
and led her at once into Lafayette Place; and, in a moment, pushed open
the door of the Astor Library, led her up the main stairway, and said,
"This is what the Public provides for his children when they have to
study."

"This is the Astor," said she, delighted. "And we are all right, as you
say, here?" Then she saw that our entrance excited no surprise among
the few readers, men and women, who were beginning to assemble.

We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and began to revel in the
luxuries for which we had only to ask that we might enjoy. I had a
little memorandum of books which I had been waiting to see. She needed
none; but looked for one and another, and yet another, and between us
we kept the attendant well in motion. A pleasant thing to me to be
finding out her thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was happy
enough to interest her in some of my pet readings; and, of course, for
she was a woman, to get quick hints which had never dawned on me
before. A very short hour and a half we spent there before I went to
the station-house again. I went very quickly, I returned to her very
slowly.

The trunk was not found. But they were now quite sure they were on its
track. They felt certain it had been carried from pier to pier and
taken back up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The
particular rascal who was supposed to have it would certainly stop
either at Piermont or at Newburg. They had telegraphed to both places,
and were in time for both. "The day boat, sir, will bring your lady's
trunk, and will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, I hope," said the officer. But
at the same moment, as he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch
had yet been received from either of the places named. I did not feel
so certain as he did.

But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my news. "Thus far," said
she, "the Public serves me well. I will borrow no trouble by want of
faith." And I,--as Dante would say,--and I, to her, "Will you let me
remind you, then, that at one we dine; that Mrs. Grills is now placing
the salt-pork upon the cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing;
and, as this is the only day when I can have the honor of your company,
will you let me show you how a Child of the Public dines, when his
finances are low?"

Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than before, "I have
perfect confidence in you,"--little thinking how she started my blood
with the words; but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand
upon my arm, as we walked down the street together.

If we had been snobs, or even if I had been one, I should have taken
her to Taylor's, and have spent all the money I had on such a luncheon
as neither of us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am not a
snob of that sort. I show my colors. I led her into a little
cross-street which I had noticed in our erratic morning pilgrimage. We
stopped at a German baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble
table, and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which I offered her
in fun. We took water instead, and we had dined, and had paid two cents
for our meal, and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock
struck two.

"And now, Mr. Carter," said she, "I will steal no more of your day. You
did not come to New York to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or
to dinner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read French. I
insist on your going to your affairs, and leaving me to mine. If you
will meet me at the Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank
you; till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a merry laugh,
"adieu!"

I knew very well that no harm could happen to her in two hours of an
autumn afternoon. I was not sorry for her _congé_, for it gave me an
opportunity to follow my own plans. I stopped at one or two
cabinet-makers, and talked with the "jours" about work, that I might
tell her with truth that I had been in search of it; then I sedulously
began on calling upon every man I could reach named Mason. O, how often
I went through one phase or another of this colloquy:--

"Is Mr. Mason in?"

"That's my name, sir."

"Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who returned from Europe last
May?"

"Know no such person, sir."

The reader can imagine how many forms this dialogue could be repeated
in, before, as I wrought my way through a long line of dry-goods cases
to a distant counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No, madam, I
know no such person as you describe"; and from the recess Fausta
emerged and met me. Her plan for the afternoon had been the same with
mine. We laughed as we detected each other; then I told her she had had
quite enough of this, that it was time she should rest, and took her,
_nolens volens_, into the ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade
her wait there through the twilight, with my copy of Clementine, till I
should return from the police-station. If the reader has ever waited in
such a place for some one to come and attend to him, he will understand
that nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not asked for
attention.

Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which there the Public
had provided for her. Then I returned, sadly enough. No tidings of
Rowdy Rob, none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or anything.
Still was my district sergeant hopeful, and, as always, respectful. But
I was hopeless this time, and I knew that the next day Fausta would be
plunging into the war with intelligence-houses and advertisements. For
the night, I was determined that she should spend it in my ideal
"respectable boarding-house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one
or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself where I would take
her. Still I thought it wisest that we should go after tea; and another
cross-street baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the
Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told Fausta of the
respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say
no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there.
"There must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a
church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."

So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sexton by arriving an
hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that
Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat,
she at one end, I at the other; and, if the whole truth be told, each
of us fell asleep at once, and slept till the heavy organ tones taught
us that the service had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled
in then, and the preacher, good soul, he took for his text, "Doth not
God care for the ravens?" I cannot describe the ineffable feeling of
home that came over me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never
been in so large a church before. I had never heard so heavy an organ
before. Perhaps I had heard better preaching, but never any that came
to my occasions more. But it was none of these things which moved me.
It was the fact that we were just where we had a right to be. No
impudent waiter could ask us why we were sitting there, nor any
petulant policeman propose that we should push on. It was God's house,
and, because his, it was his children's.

All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it proved, upon Fausta
also. For when the service was ended, and I ventured to ask her whether
she also had this sense of home and rest, she assented so eagerly, that
I proposed, though with hesitation, a notion which had crossed me, that
I should leave her there.

"I cannot think," I said, "of any possible harm that could come to you
before morning."

"Do you know, I had thought of that very same thing, but I did not dare
tell you," she said.

Was not I glad that she had considered me her keeper! But I only said,
"At the 'respectable boarding-house' you might be annoyed by
questions."

"And no one will speak to me here. I know that from Goody Two-Shoes."

"I will be here," said I, "at sunrise in the morning." And so I bade
her good by, insisting on leaving in the pew my own great-coat. I knew
she might need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton closed the
door below on the last of the down-stairs worshippers. He passed along
the aisles below, with his long poker which screwed down the gas. I saw
at once that he had no intent of exploring the galleries. But I
loitered outside till I saw him lock the doors and depart; and then,
happy in the thought that Miss Jones was in the safest place in New
York,--as comfortable as she was the night before, and much more
comfortable than she had been any night upon the canal,--I went in
search of my own lodging.

"To the respectable boarding-house?"

Not a bit, reader. I had no shillings for respectable or disrespectable
boarding-houses. I asked the first policeman where his district station
was. I went into its office, and told the captain that I was green in
the city; had got no work and no money. In truth, I had left my purse
in Miss Jones's charge, and a five-cent piece, which I showed the
chief, was all I had. He said no word but to bid me go up two flights
and turn into the first bunk I found. I did so; and in five minutes was
asleep in a better bed than I had slept in for nine days.

That was what the Public did for me that night. I, too, was safe!

I am making this story too long. But with that night and its anxieties
the end has come. At sunrise I rose and made my easy toilet. I bought
and ate my roll,--varying the brand from yesterday's. I bought another,
with a lump of butter, and an orange, for Fausta. I left my portmanteau
at the station, while I rushed to the sexton's house, told his wife I
had left my gloves in church the night before,--as was the truth,--and
easily obtained from her the keys. In a moment I was in the
vestibule,--locked in,--was in the gallery, and there found Fausta,
just awake, as she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her
morning lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, that I should soon
appear. Nor ghost, nor wraith, had visited her. I spread for her a
brown paper table-cloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her
breakfast for her, called her, and wondered at her toilet. How is it
that women always make themselves appear as neat and finished as if
there were no conflict, dust, or wrinkle in the world?

[Here Fausta adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis, to say that she
folded her undersleeves neatly, and her collar, before she slept, and
put them between the cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning
they had been pressed--without a sad-iron.]

She finished her repast. I opened the church-door for five minutes. She
passed out when she had enough examined the monuments, and at a
respectable distance I followed her. We joined each other, and took our
accustomed morning walk; but then she resolutely said, "Good by," for
the day. She would find work before night,--work and a home. And I must
do the same. Only when I pressed her to let me know of her success, she
said she would meet me at the Astor Library just before it closed. No,
she would not take my money. Enough, that for twenty-four hours she had
been my guest. When she had found her aunt and told her the story, they
should insist on repaying this hospitality. Hospitality, dear reader,
which I had dispensed at the charge of six cents. Have you ever treated
Miranda for a day and found the charge so low? When I urged other
assistance she said resolutely, "No." In fact, she had already made an
appointment at two, she said, and she must not waste the day.

I also had an appointment at two; for it was at that hour that Burrham
was to distribute the cyclopædias at Castle Garden. The Emigrant
Commission had not yet seized it for their own. I spent the morning in
asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and for work in
cabinet-shops. I found neither, and so wrought my way to the appointed
place, where, instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to get
one so contemptible in my hand.

Those who remember Jenny Lind's first triumph night at Castle Garden
have some idea of the crowd as it filled gallery and floor of that
immense hall when I entered. I had given no thought to the machinery of
this folly. I only know that my ticket bade me be there at two P.M.
this day. But as I drew near, the throng, the bands of policemen, the
long queues of persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair of
ten thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham was not unwilling to
make it as showy, perhaps as noisy, an affair as was respectable, by
way of advertising future excursions and distributions. I was led to
seat No. 3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I came there I
found I was very much of a prisoner. I was late, or rather on the
stroke of two. Immediately, almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and
made a long speech about his liberality, and the public's liberality,
and everybody's liberality in general, and the method of the
distribution in particular. The mayor and four or five other well-known
and respectable gentlemen were kind enough to be present to guarantee
the fairness of the arrangements. At the suggestion of the mayor and
the police, the doors would now be closed, that no persons might
interrupt the ceremony till it was ended. And the distribution of the
cyclopædias would at once go forward, in the order in which the lots
were drawn,--earliest numbers securing the earliest impressions; which,
as Mr. Burrham almost regretted to say, were a little better than the
latest. After these had been distributed two figures would be
drawn,--one green and one red, to indicate the fortunate lady and
gentleman who would receive respectively the profits which had arisen
from this method of selling the cyclopædias, after the expenses of
printing and distribution had been covered, and after the magazines had
been ordered.

Great cheering followed this announcement from all but me. Here I had
shut myself up in this humbug hall, for Heaven knew how long, on the
most important day of my life. I would have given up willingly my
cyclopædia and my chance at the "profits," for the certainty of seeing
Fausta at five o'clock. If I did not see her then, what might befall
her, and when might I see her again? An hour before this certainty was
my own; now it was only mine by my liberating myself from this prison.
Still I was encouraged by seeing that everything was conducted like
clock-work. From literally a hundred stations they were distributing
the books. We formed ourselves into queues as we pleased, drew our
numbers, and then presented ourselves at the bureaux, ordered our
magazines, and took our cyclopædias. It would be done, at that rate, by
half past four. An omnibus might bring me to the Park, and a Bowery car
do the rest in time. After a vain discussion for the right of exit with
one or two of the attendants, I abandoned myself to this hope, and
began studying my cyclopædia.

It was sufficiently amusing to see ten thousand people resign
themselves to the same task, and affect to be unconcerned about the
green and red figures which were to divide the "profits." I tried to
make out who were as anxious to get out of that tawdry den as I was.
Four o'clock struck, and the distribution was not done. I began to be
very impatient. What if Fausta fell into trouble? I knew, or hoped I
knew, that she would struggle to the Astor Library, as to her only
place of rescue and refuge,--her asylum. What if I failed her there? I
who had pretended to be her protector! "Protector, indeed!" she would
say, if she knew I was at a theatre witnessing the greatest folly of
the age. And if I did not meet her to-day, when should I meet her? If
she found her aunt, how should I find her? If she did not find
her,--good God! that was worse,--where might she not be before twelve
hours were over? Then the fatal trunk! I had told the police agent he
might send it to the St. Nicholas, because I had to give him some
address. But Fausta did not know this, and the St. Nicholas people knew
nothing of us. I grew more and more excited, and when at last my next
neighbor told me that it was half past four, I rose and insisted on
leaving my seat. Two ushers with blue sashes almost held me down; they
showed me the whole assembly sinking into quiet. In fact, at that
moment Mr. Burrham was begging every one to be seated. I would not be
seated. I would go to the door. I would go out. "Go, if you please!"
said the usher next it, contemptuously. And I looked, and there was no
handle! Yet this was not a dream. It is the way they arrange the doors
in halls where they choose to keep people in their places. I could have
collared that grinning blue sash. I did tell him I would wring his
precious neck for him, if he did not let me out. I said I would sue him
for false imprisonment; I would have a writ of _habeas corpus_.

"_Habeas corpus_ be d----d!" said the officer, with an irreverent
disrespect to the palladium. "If you are not more civil, sir, I will
call the police, of whom we have plenty. You say you want to go out;
you are keeping everybody in."

And, in fact, at that moment the clear voice of the mayor was
announcing that they would not go on until there was perfect quiet; and
I felt that I was imprisoning all these people, not they me.

"Child of the Public," said my mourning genius, "are you better than
other men?" So I sneaked back to seat No. 3,671, amid the contemptuous
and reproachful looks and sneers of my more respectable neighbors, who
had sat where they were told to do. We must be through in a moment, and
perhaps Fausta would be late also. If only the Astor would keep open
after sunset! How often have I wished that since, and for less reasons!

Silence thus restored, Mr. A----, the mayor, led forward his little
daughter, blindfolded her, and bade her put her hand into a green box,
from which she drew out a green ticket. He took it from her, and read,
in his clear voice again, "No. 2,973!" By this time we all knew where
the "two thousands" sat. Then "nine hundreds" were not far from the
front, so that it was not far that that frightened girl, dressed all in
black, and heavily veiled, had to walk, who answered to this call. Mr.
A---- met her, helped her up the stair upon the stage, took from her
her ticket, and read, "Jerusha Stillingfleet, of Yellow Springs, who,
at her death, as it seems, transferred this right to the bearer."

The disappointed nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine joined in a
rapturous cheer, each man and woman, to show that he or she was not
disappointed. The bearer spoke with Mr. Burrham, in answer to his
questions, and, with a good deal of ostentation, he opened a
check-book, filled a check and passed it to her, she signing a receipt
as she took it, and transferring to him her ticket. So far, in dumb
show, all was well. What was more to my purpose, it was rapid, for we
should have been done in five minutes more, but that some devil tempted
some loafer in a gallery to cry, "Face! face!" Miss Stillingfleet's
legatee was still heavily veiled.

In one horrid minute that whole amphitheatre, which seemed to me then
more cruel than the Coliseum ever was, rang out with a cry of "Face,
face!" I tried the counter-cry of "Shame! shame!" but I was in disgrace
among my neighbors, and a counter-cry never takes as its prototype
does, either. At first, on the stage, they affected not to hear or
understand; then there was a courtly whisper between Mr. Burrham and
the lady; but Mr. A----, the mayor, and the respectable gentlemen,
instantly interfered. It was evident that she would not unveil, and
that they were prepared to indorse her refusal. In a moment more she
courtesied to the assembly; the mayor gave her his arm, and led her out
through a side door.

O, the yell that rose up then! The whole assembly stood up, and, as if
they had lost some vested right, hooted and shrieked, "Back! back!
Face! face!" Mr. A---- returned, made as if he would speak, came
forward to the very front, and got a moment's silence.

"It is not in the bond, gentlemen," said he. "The young lady is
unwilling to unveil, and we must not compel her."

"Face! face!" was the only answer, and oranges from up stairs flew
about his head and struck upon the table,--an omen only fearful from
what it prophesied. Then there was such a row for five minutes as I
hope I may never see or hear again. People kept their places,
fortunately, under a vague impression that they should forfeit some
magic rights if they left those numbered seats. But when, for a moment,
a file of policemen appeared in the orchestra, a whole volley of
cyclopædias fell like rain upon their chief, with a renewed cry of
"Face! face!"

At this juncture, with a good deal of knowledge of popular feeling, Mr.
A---- led forward his child again. Frightened to death the poor thing
was, and crying; he tied his handkerchief round her eyes hastily, and
took her to the red box. For a minute the house was hushed. A cry of
"Down! down!" and every one took his place as the child gave the red
ticket to her father. He read it as before, "No. 3,671!" I heard the
words as if he did not speak them. All excited by the delay and the
row, by the injustice to the stranger and the personal injustice of
everybody to me, I did not know, for a dozen seconds, that every one
was looking towards our side of the house, nor was it till my next
neighbor with the watch said, "Go, you fool," that I was aware that
3,671 was I! Even then, as I stepped down the passage and up the steps,
my only feeling was, that I should get out of this horrid trap, and
possibly find Miss Jones lingering near the Astor,--not by any means
that I was invited to take a check for $5,000.

There was not much cheering. Women never mean to cheer, of course. The
men had cheered the green ticket, but they were mad with the red one. I
gave up my ticket, signed my receipt, and took my check, shook hands
with Mr. A---- and Mr. Burrham, and turned to bow to the mob,--for mob
I must call it now. But the cheers died away. A few people tried to go
out, perhaps, but there was nothing now to retain any in their seats as
before, and the generality rose, pressed down the passages, and howled,
"Face! face!" I thought for a moment that I ought to say something, but
they would not hear me, and, after a moment's pause, my passion to
depart overwhelmed me. I muttered some apology to the gentlemen, and
left the stage by the stage-door.

I had forgotten that to Castle Garden there can be no back entrance. I
came to door after door, which were all locked. It was growing dark.
Evidently the sun was set, and I knew the library-door would be shut at
sunset. The passages were very obscure. All around me rang this horrid
yell of the mob, in which all that I could discern was the cry, "Face,
face!" At last, as I groped round, I came to a practicable door. I
entered a room where the western sunset glare dazzled me. I was not
alone. The veiled lady in black was there. But the instant she saw me
she sprang towards me, flung herself into my arms, and cried:--

"Felix, is it you?--you are indeed my protector!"

It was Miss Jones! It was Fausta! She was the legatee of Miss
Stillingfleet. My first thought was, "O, if that beggarly usher had let
me go! Will I ever, ever think I have better rights than the Public
again?"

I took her in my arms. I carried her to the sofa. I could hardly speak
for excitement. Then I did say that I had been wild with terror; that I
had feared I had lost her, and lost her forever; that to have lost that
interview would have been worse to me than death; for unless she knew
that I loved her better than man ever loved woman, I could not face a
lonely night, and another lonely day.

"My dear, dear child," I said, "you may think me wild; but I must say
this,--it has been pent up too long."

"Say what you will," she said after a moment, in which still I held her
in my arms; she was trembling so that she could not have sat upright
alone,--"say what you will, if only you do not tell me to spend another
day alone."

And I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I said,
"Never, darling, God helping me, till I die!"

How long we sat there I do not know. Neither of us spoke again. For
one, I looked out on the sunset and the bay. We had but just time to
rearrange ourselves in positions more independent, when Mr. A---- came
in, this time in alarm, to say:--

"Miss Jones, we must get you out of this place, or we must hide you
somewhere. I believe, before God, they will storm this passage, and
pull the house about our ears."

He said this, not conscious, as he began, that I was there. At that
moment, however, I felt as if I could have met a million men. I started
forward and passed him, saying, "Let me speak to them." I rushed upon
the stage, fairly pushing back two or three bullies who were already
upon it. I sprang upon the table, kicking down the red box as I did so,
so that the red tickets fell on the floor and on the people below. One
stuck in an old man's spectacles in a way which made the people in the
galleries laugh. A laugh is a great blessing at such a moment.
Curiosity is another. Three loud words spoken like thunder do a good
deal more. And after three words the house was hushed to hear me. I
said:--

"Be fair to the girl. She has no father nor mother. She has no brother
nor sister. She is alone in the world, with nobody to help her but the
public--and me!"

The audacity of the speech brought out a cheer, and we should have come
off in triumph, when some rowdy--the original "face" man, I
suppose--said,--

"And who are you?"

If the laugh went against me now I was lost, of course. Fortunately I
had no time to think. I said without thinking,--

"I am the Child of the Public, and her betrothed husband!"

O heavens! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings, of satisfaction with
a _dénouement_, rang through the house, and showed that all was well.
Burrham caught the moment, and started his band, this time
successfully,--I believe with "See the Conquering Hero." The doors, of
course, had been open long before. Well-disposed people saw they need
stay no longer; ill-disposed people dared not stay; the blue-coated men
with buttons sauntered on the stage in groups, and I suppose the worst
rowdies disappeared as they saw them. I had made my single speech, and
for the moment I was a hero.

I believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me. Burrham almost did.
They overwhelmed me with thanks and congratulations. All these I
received as well as I could,--somehow I did not feel at all
surprised,--everything was as it should be. I scarcely thought of
leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise, the mayor asked me to
go home with him to dinner.

Then I remembered that we were not to spend the rest of our lives in
Castle Garden. I blundered out something about Miss Jones, that she had
no escort except me, and pressed into her room to find her. A group of
gentlemen was around her. Her veil was back now. She was very pale, but
very lovely. Have I said that she was beautiful as heaven? She was the
queen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiving their
felicitations that the danger was over, and owning that she had been
very much frightened. "Until," she said, "my friend, Mr. Carter, was
fortunate enough to guess that I was here. How he did it," she said,
turning to me, "is yet an utter mystery to me."

She did not know till then that it was I who had shared with her the
profits of the cyclopædias.

As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some one to order a
carriage. I sent to the ticket-office for my valise, and we rode to the
St. Nicholas. I fairly laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel-door
what would have been my last dollar and a half only two hours before. I
entered Miss Jones's name and my own. The clerk looked, and said
inquiringly,--

"Is it Miss Jones's trunk which came this afternoon?"

I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble floor. Rowdy Rob
had deserted it, having seen, perhaps, a detective when he reached
Piermont. The trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and had
returned by the day boat of that day.

Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper after her. One kiss and
"Good night" was all that I got from her then.

"In the morning," said she, "you shall explain."