here. You're the gentleman that had a bicycle tire eat
up by a bear, ain't you?"

I admitted that I was, and still, without opening the letter, I asked
him, where it came from.

"That was given to me in New York, sir," said he, "by a Dago, one of
these I-talians. He gave me the money to go to Blackburn Station in
the cars, and then I walked over to the tavern. He said he thought I'd
find you there, sir. He told me just what sort of a lookin' man you
was, sir, and that letter is for you, and no mistake. He didn't know
your name, or he'd put it on."

"Oh, it is from the owner of the bear," said I.

"Yes, sir," said the man, "that's him. He did own a bear--he told
me--that eat up your tire."

I now tore open the blank envelope, and found it contained a letter on
a single sheet, and in this was a folded paper, very dirty. The letter
was apparently written in Italian, and had no signature. I ran my eye
along the opening lines, and soon found that it would be a very
difficult piece of business for me to read it. I was a fair French and
German scholar, but my knowledge of Italian was due entirely to its
relationship with Latin. I told the man to rest himself somewhere, and
went to the house, and, finding Miss Edith, I informed her that I had
a letter from the bear man, and asked her if she could read Italian.

"I studied the language at school," she said, "but I have not
practised much. However, let us go into the library--there is a
dictionary there--and perhaps we can spell it out."

We spread the open sheet upon the library-table, and laid the folded
paper near by, and, sitting side by side, with a dictionary before us,
we went to work. It was very hard work.

"I think," said my companion, after ten minutes' application, "that
the man who sent you this letter writes Italian about as badly as we
read it. I think I could decipher the meaning of his words if I knew
what letters those funny scratches were intended to represent. But let
us stick to it. After a while we may get a little used to the writing,
and I must admit that I have a curiosity to know what the man has to
say about his bear."

After a time the work became easier. Miss Edith possessed an acuteness
of perception which enabled her to decipher almost illegible words by
comparing them with others which were better written. We were at last
enabled to translate the letter. The substance of it was as follows:

The writer came to New York on a ship. There w