ing munificence of
his inward nature, he called aloud, "Say, stranger, you seem to have
got it thickly in the neck. Is it family affliction or the whisky of the
establishment?"

At these affably-intentioned words the stranger raised his eyes quickly,
with an indication of not having up to that time been aware of our
presence.

"Sir," he exclaimed, approaching to a spot where he could converse
with a more enhanced facility, "when I loosened the restraint of an
overpowering if unmanly grief, I imagined that I was alone, for I
would have shunned even the most flattering sympathy, but your
charitably-modulated voice invites confidence. The one before you is the
most contemptible, left-handed, and disqualified outcast in creation,
and he is now making his way towards the river, while his widow will be
left to take in washing, his infant son to vend evening printed leaves,
and his graceful and hitherto highly secluded daughters to go upon the
stage."

"Say, stranger," interposed this person, by no means unwilling to
engrave upon his memory this newly-acquired form of greeting, "the
emotion is doubtless all-pressing, but in my ornate and flower-laden
tongue we have a salutation, 'Slowly, slowly; walk slowly,' which seems
to be of far-seeing application."

"That's so," remarked the one by my side. "Separate it with the teeth,
inch by inch."

"I will be calm, then," continued the other (who, to avoid the
complication of the intermingling circumstances, may be described as
the more stranger of the two), and he took of his neckcloth. "I am a
merchant in tea, yellow fat, and mixed spices, in a small but hitherto
satisfactory way." Thus revealing himself, he continued to set forth
how at an earlier hour he had started on a journey to deposit his wealth
(doubtless as a propitiation of outraged deities) upon a certain bank,
and how, upon reaching the specified point, he discovered that what
he carried had eluded his vigilance. "All gone: notes, gold, and
pocket-book--the savings of a lifetime," concluded the ill-omened one,
and at the recollection a sudden and even more highly-sustained frenzy
of self-unpopularity involving him, without a pause he addressed himself
by seven and twenty insulting expressions, many of which were quite new
to my understanding.

At the earliest mention of the details affecting the loss, the elbow of
the person who had made himself responsible for the financial obligation
of the day propelled itsel