"Ladies and gintlemen," says he, "ye here behold th' koind friend that led Mick Murphy—that's licked the country—to bang a bit of a bye, after misnamin' a dacent woman." Smash! goes the glass on the floor. "Tra-la-loo to you!" says Mick, flinging the barkeep' a half-dollar. "Keep the change," he says. "It's the last cent I have, and the last you'll get from me."

And that's just what happened, too. He's located about twenty mile over yonder, with a good factory and somewheres between ninety and nine thousand Murphys claiming him as their start. And my best friend is old Mick. He cried when I first went to see him. I reformed him, but it cost me my home. I never knew, either, till he told me himself, a year ago.

VI

"I'M MARY SMITH"

Plunk, plunk, plunketty-plunk, down the pike, me and Eli, and Dandy Jim, Eli's black horse.

I'll never tell you how I felt. It was the first I'd ever been away from home. All the regrets I had was eased by knowing it wouldn't be more than six months before I'd come back with a gunny-sack full of hundred-dollar bills, buy Mr. Jasper's place with the pillars in front, and a railroad, and pervade things in general with a tone of pink and birds singing.

One thing about being a boy is that you're sure of to-morrow, anyhow.

Well, we slid along behind a free-gaited horse, in an easy wagon, over good roads, in early New England summer, when every breath of air had a pretty story to tell. If it hadn't been for the tight vest I had on, I reckon my heart would have bust my ribs for joyfulness.

Boston scart the life out of me. I had no notion there was that many folks and horses and buildings in the world. We pulled for the schooner right away, but none too quick for me. I never liked a crowd. A man understands he don't amount to much, yet don't like to have the fact rubbed in.

Cap'n Jesse Conklin owned the boat. He had a mild blue eye, a splendid line of cuss words, a body as big as mine, and a pair of legs that just saved him from running aground. When I first saw him I thought he was standing in a hole. Howsomever, he got around mighty lively on his little stumps, and he could light his pipe when the Matilda, of Boston, was throwing handsprings. He always opened his eyes wide and said, "Ha!" like he was perfectly astonished when you spoke to him. Then, to square things, you was really perfectly astonished when 

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