no more use for it, and it would be delivered to
their friends.

The late owners! Were we no longer actual owners, then? My individual
loss was not great, and besides, it might be made up to me; for I saw
my name on a strange box on the table, and being of curious
disposition, the singularity of the adventure made it interesting to
me. The consternation of the rest was indescribable. The minister
supposed that he had fallen among communists, who disbelieved in
property, and was beginning a speech on the elementary conditions of
society; when silence was called, and the third-class passengers were
ordered to advance, that their boxes might be opened. Each man had his
own carefully docketed. The lids flew off, and within, instead of
clothes, and shoes, and dressing apparatus, and money, and jewels, and
such-like, were simply samples of the work which he had done in his
life. There was an account-book also, in which were entered the number
of days which he had worked, the number and size of the fields, etc.,
which he had drained and inclosed and plowed, the crops which he had
reaped, the walls which he had built, the metal which he had dug out
and smelted and fashioned into articles of use to mankind, the leather
which he had tanned, the clothes which he had woven,--all entered with
punctual exactness; and on the opposite page, the wages which he had
received, and the share which had been allotted to him of the good
things which he had helped to create.

Besides his work, so specifically called, there were his actions,--his
affection for his parents or his wife and children, his self-denials,
his charities, his purity, his truth, his honesty; or it might be ugly
catalogues of sins and oaths and drunkenness and brutality. But
inquiry into action was reserved for a second investigation before a
higher commissioner. The first examination was confined to the literal
work done by each man for the general good,--how much he had
contributed, and how much society had done for him in return; and no
one, it seemed, could be allowed to go any further without a
certificate of having passed this test satisfactorily. With the
workmen, the balance in most instances was found enormously in their
favor. The state of the case was so clear that the scrutiny was
rapidly got over, and they and their luggage were passed in to the
higher court. A few were found whose boxes were empty, who had done
nothing useful all their lives, and had subsis