mful of wisps that had fallen from the loads,
and made a bed for myself in a wagon-shed by the roadside. In the
middle of the night I was awakened by a loud outcry. A fierce light
shone in my face. It was the lamp of a carriage that had been driven
into the shed. I was lying between the horse's feet unhurt. A
gentleman sprang from the carriage, more frightened than I, and bent
over me. When he found that I had suffered no injury, he put his hand
in his pocket and held out a silver quarter.

"Go," he said, "and drink it up."

"Drink it up yourself!" I shouted angrily. "What do you take me for?"

They were rather high heroics, seeing where I was, but he saw nothing
to laugh at. He looked earnestly at me for a moment, then held out his
hand and shook mine heartily. "I believe you," he said; "yet you need
it, or you would not sleep here. Now will you take it from me?" And I
took the money.

The next day it rained, and the next day after that, and I footed it
back to the city, still on my vain quest. A quarter is not a great
capital to subsist on in New York when one is not a beggar and has no
friends. Two days of it drove me out again to find at least the food
to keep me alive; but in those two days I met the man who, long years
after, was to be my honored chief, Charles A. Dana, the editor of the
_Sun_. There had been an item in the _Sun_ about a volunteer regiment
being fitted out for France. I went up to the office, and was admitted
to Mr. Dana's presence. I fancy I must have appealed to his sense of
the ludicrous, dressed in top-boots and a linen duster much the worse
for wear, and demanding to be sent out to fight. He knew nothing about
recruiting. Was I French? No, Danish; it had been in his paper about
the regiment. He smiled a little at my faith, and said editors
sometimes did not know about everything that was in their papers. I
turned to go, grievously disappointed, but he called me back.

"Have you," he said, looking searchingly at me; "have you had your
breakfast?"

No, God knows that I did not; neither that day nor for many days
before. That was one of the things I had at last learned to consider
among the superfluities of an effete civilization. I suppose I had no
need of telling it to him, for it was plain to read in my face. He put
his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dollar.

"There," he said, "go and get your breakfast; and better give up the
war."

Give up the war! and