ildin'--stop there for victuals or--or onythin'?"

The conductor, thinking him out of his mind, said more mildly:

"Who came with you? Who is looking after you aboard the cars?"

"Oh! a nice young chiel yonder; but he left me alane there, so I stepped
oot withoot his kennin' an' popped in here."

"Ah, yes; just so. I've no doubt there is a spare room in one of the public
institutions awaiting you. What sort of a looking man has you in charge?"

"Oh! he's a clever young chiel, wi' a door-plate on his bonnet; the sexton,
I tak' it."

Not making much out of this information, the conductor left him to make
inquiries ahead, tapping his forehead significantly to some passengers
near, who had overheard the conversation, and who, as soon as the conductor
was out of sight, began to question the "harmless lunatic."

His answers to their inquiries were not more clear than those the conductor
had elicited, and Mr. Sherwood, who sat a few seats behind, becoming
indignant at the rude jokes that were being made at the expense of the
unfortunate man, stepped forward to interfere.

Surely he had seen the man before. He gazed at the man's distressed face,
but could not place him.

"What's the trouble, my friend?" he asked, sitting down in the seat behind
and leaning over to speak to him.

"I'm shure I dinna ken, sir, at a', at a'. There's a mistak' afloat
somewhere. I never was in sic a fix afore. This is a queer kintry, I tak'
it."

"Where are you from?"

That question set him on the right track at once. He could tell his story
if once he started at the beginning, though he found it impossible to make
these strangers comprehend his present dilemma; so beginning from the time
he left his own dooryard with the last cartload of potatoes, he gave them a
detailed account of his wanderings up to the time when he met the fine
young gentlemen in Halifax. But he had no idea how he got to Truro; that
was all a blank to him. When Mr. Sherwood explained that the train on which
he was riding was a public conveyance which went back and forth daily to
carry passengers and freight, he could scarcely believe it. His own
explanation seemed the more plausible, for did it not agree with what the
young sexton told him? He had been befooled once too often to listen to the
many explanations of those around him.

But the conductor now appeared, having found out all there was to tell
about the man, and feeling annoyed at his mistake, now demanded