main street of a village. It
was unquestionably a self-respecting village. The well-tarred
sidewalks, the freshly painted meeting-house neighboring the
engine-house "No. 1," the homes with their well-mowed lawns in front
and the tidily kept yards behind--all spoke of a decency and
lawfulness that might easily have set the hearts of the most
righteous of vagabonds a-quaking.

Patsy looked it carefully over. "Sure, Arden's no name for it at all.
They'd better have called it Gospel Center--or New Canaan. 'Twould be
a grand place, though, to shut in all the Wilfred Peterson-Joneses,
to keep them off the county's nerves--and the rich men's sons, to
keep them off the public sympathy. But 'tis no place for us, lad."

The tinker shifted his kit from one shoulder to the other and held
his tongue.

Their entrance was what Patsy might have termed "fit." The dogs of
the village were on hand; that self-appointed escort of all doubtful
characters barked them down the street with a lusty chorus of growls
and snarls and sharp, staccato yaps. There were the children, too, of
course; the older ones followed hot-foot after the dogs; the smaller
ones came, a stumbling vanguard, sucking speculative thumbs or
forefingers, as the choice might be. The hurly-burly brought the
grown-ups to windows and doors.

"'Hark! hark! the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town,'"
quoted Patsy, with a grim little smile, and glanced across at the
tinker. He was blushing fiercely. "Never mind, lad. 'Tis better being
barked into a town than bitten out of it."

For answer the tinker stopped and folded his arms sullenly. "I'm not
such a fool I can't feel somethin'. Don't you reckon I know the shame
it is to be keepin' a decent woman company with these rags--and no
wits?"

"If I've not misplaced my memory, 'twas myself that chose the
company, and 'twas largely on account of those very things, I'm
thinking. Do ye guess for a minute that if ye had been a rich man's
son in grand clothes--and manners to match--I'd ever have tramped a
millimeter with ye?" She smiled coaxingly. "Faith! there's naught the
matter with those rags; a king's son might be proud o' them. As for
foolishness, I've known worse faults in a man."

The tinker winced imperceptibly, and all unconsciously Patsy went on:
"'Tis the heart of a man that measures him, after all, and not the
wits that crowd his brain or the gold that lines his pockets. Oh,
what do the folks who sit snug by t