ut I have an inclination to look them over. If a man has
leisure, he may often pick up something amusing among such rubbish.
Don't you ever read the papers that pass through your hands?"

"No, sir--I 'as no time for that, sir. And then I was never taught to
read writing, and these 'ere papers is all written ones. We puts them
that's written for one trunk, and them that's printed for another, as
you see, sir; one must have a heye to the looks of the work."

"Why yes--you seem to manage the job very well; and I have a trunk, by
the bye, that wants patching up before my boy carries it off with him;
I'll send it round to you; Hopkins. But stay--what's this?" and the
doctor took up a soiled, yellow sheet of paper, from the heap rejected
by the workman; it contained a scrawl which proved to be the identical
letter of the poor poet, the Lumley autograph, though in what manner it
became mingled with that heap of rubbish has never been satisfactorily
ascertained.

"Here's a poor fellow who had a hard fate, Hopkins," said the
benevolent man, thoughtfully. "It is as good as a sermon on charity to
read that letter."

The trunk-maker begged to hear it.

"Well, poor journeyman as I be, I was never yet in so bad a way as
that, sir."

"And never will be, I hope; but this was a poet, Hopkins--and that's
but an indifferent trade to live by. I'll tell you what, my good
friend," said the doctor, suddenly, "that letter is worth keeping, and
you may paste it in the trunk I'll send round this afternoon--put it in
the lid, where it can be read."

The trunk was sent, and the letter actually pasted in it as part of the
new lining. Dr. H----, who, as we have observed, was rather eccentric
in his ways, had a son about to commence his career as a soldier; and
the worthy man thought the letter might teach the youth a useful lesson
of moderation and temperance, by showing him every time he opened his
trunk, the extreme of want to which his fellow beings were occasionally
reduced. What success followed the plan we cannot say. The trunk,
however, shared the young soldier's wandering life; it carried the
cornet's uniform to America; it was besieged in Boston; and it made
part of the besieging baggage at Charleston. It was not destined,
however, to remain in the new world, but followed its owner to the East
Indies, carrying on this second voyage, a lieutenant's commission. At
length, after passing five-and-twenty years in Bengal, the trunk
retur