horror
of the quiet country, till after nightfall. I looked at the lights
kindling in the parlor windows, with a miserable envy of the happy
people inside. A word of advice would have been worth something to me
at that time. Well! I got it: a policeman advised me to move on. He was
quite right; what else could I do? I looked up at the sky, and there
was my old friend of many a night's watch at sea, the north star. 'All
points of the compass are alike to me,' I thought to myself; 'I'll go
_your_ way.' Not even the star would keep me company that night. It got
behind a cloud, and left me alone in the rain and darkness. I groped my
way to a cart-shed, fell asleep, and dreamed of old times, when I served
my gypsy master and lived with the dogs. God! what I would have given
when I woke to have felt Tommy's little cold muzzle in my hand! Why am
I dwelling on these things? Why don't I get on to the end? You shouldn't
encourage me, sir, by listening, so patiently. After a week more of
wandering, without hope to help me, or prospects to look to, I found
myself in the streets of Shrewsbury, staring in at the windows of a
book-seller's shop. An old man came to the shop door, looked about him,
and saw me. 'Do you want a job?' he asked. 'And are you not above
doing it cheap?' The prospect of having something to do, and some human
creature to speak a word to, tempted me, and I did a day's dirty work
in the book-seller's warehouse for a shilling. More work followed at the
same rate. In a week I was promoted to sweep out the shop and put up the
shutters. In no very long time after, I was trusted to carry the books
out; and when quarter-day came, and the shop-man left, I took his place.
Wonderful luck! you will say; here I had found my way to a friend at
last. I had found my way to one of the most merciless misers in
England; and I had risen in the little world of Shrewsbury by the purely
commercial process of underselling all my competitors. The job in the
warehouse had been declined at the price by every idle man in the town,
and I did it. The regular porter received his weekly pittance under
weekly protest. I took two shillings less, and made no complaint. The
shop-man gave warning on the ground that he was underfed as well as
underpaid. I received half his salary, and lived contentedly on his
reversionary scraps. Never were two men so well suited to each other as
that book-seller and I. _His_ one object in life was to find somebody
w