d a father as I have, you would not
think it so very extraordinary to do as he tells you."

"Ah! so he is a very good father, is he? He must have a great trust in
your sobriety and steadiness to let you wander about the world as he
does."

"I am going to join him in London."

"In London! Oh, does he live there?"

"He is going to live there for some time."

"Then perhaps we may meet. I too am going to town."

"Oh, we shall be sure to meet there!" said I, with frank gladness; for
my interest in the young man was not diminished by his conversation,
however much I disliked the sentiments it expressed.

The lad laughed, and his laugh was peculiar,--it was low, musical, but
hollow and artificial.

"Sure to meet! London is a large place: where shall you be found?"

I gave him, without scruple, the address of the hotel at which I
expected to find my father, although his deliberate inspection of my
knapsack must already have apprised him of that address. He listened
attentively, and repeated it twice over, as if to impress it on his
memory; and we both walked on in silence, till, turning up a small
passage, we suddenly found ourselves in a large churchyard,--a flagged
path stretched diagonally across it towards the market-place, on
which it bordered. In this churchyard, upon a gravestone, sat a young
Savoyard; his hurdy-gurdy, or whatever else his instrument might be
called, was on his lap; and he was gnawing his crust and feeding some
poor little white mice (standing on their hind legs on the hurdy-gurdy)
as merrily as if he had chosen the gayest resting-place in the world.

We both stopped. The Savoyard, seeing us, put his arch head on one side,
showed all his white teeth in that happy smile so peculiar to his race,
and in which poverty seems to beg so blithely, and gave the handle of
his instrument a turn. "Poor child!" said I.

"Aha, you pity him! but why? According to your rule, Mr. Caxton, he is
not so much to be pitied; the dropsical jeweller would give him as much
for his limbs and health as for ours! How is it--answer me, son of so
wise a father--that no one pities the dropsical jeweller, and all pity
the healthy Savoyard? It is, sir, because there is a stern truth which
is stronger than all Spartan lessons,--Poverty is the master-ill of the
world. Look round. Does poverty leave its signs over the graves? Look
at that large tomb fenced round; read that long inscription:
'Virtue'--'best of husbands'--'affect