t's done the right way." It was only by such
philosophy he had done it at all. Ristofalo he could have haunted
without effort; but Ristofalo was not to be found. Richling tramped in
vain. It may be that all plans were of equal merit just then. The
summers of New Orleans in those times were, as to commerce, an utter
torpor, and the autumn reawakening was very tardy. It was still too
early for the stirrings of general mercantile life. The movement of the
cotton crop was just beginning to be perceptible; but otherwise almost
the only sounds were from the hammers of craftsmen making the town
larger and preparing it for the activities of days to come.

The afternoon wore along. Not a cent yet to carry home! Men began to
shut their idle shops and go to meet their wives and children about
their comfortable dinner-tables. The sun dipped low. Hammers and saws
were dropped into tool-boxes, and painters pulled themselves out of
their overalls. The mechanic's rank, hot supper began to smoke on its
bare board; but there was one board that was still altogether bare and
to which no one hastened. Another day and another chance of life were
gone.

Some men at a warehouse door, the only opening in the building left
unclosed, were hurrying in a few bags of shelled corn. Night was
falling. At an earlier hour Richling had offered the labor of his hands
at this very door and had been rejected. Now, as they rolled in the last
truck-load, they began to ask for rest with all the gladness he would
have felt to be offered toil, singing,--

"To blow, to blow, some time for to blow."

They swung the great leaves of the door together as they finished their
chorus, stood grouped outside a moment while the warehouseman turned the
resounding lock, and then went away. Richling, who had moved on, watched
them over his shoulder, and as they left turned back. He was about to do
what he had never done before. He went back to the door where the bags
of grain had stood. A drunken sailor came swinging along. He stood still
and let him pass; there must be no witnesses. The sailor turned the next
corner. Neither up nor down nor across the street, nor at dust-begrimed,
cobwebbed window, was there any sound or motion. Richling dropped
quickly on one knee and gathered hastily into his pocket a little pile
of shelled corn that had leaked from one of the bags.

That was all. No harm to a living soul; no theft; no wrong; but ah! as
he rose he felt a sudden in