nd started.
I telegraphed them at the last station--they've got the dispatch by this
time." As he said this he rubbed his hands, and changed the portmanteau on
his left to the right, and then the one on the right to the left.

4. "Have you a wife?" said I. "Yes, and three children," was the answer.
He then got up and folded his overcoat anew, and hung it over the back of
the seat. "You are somewhat nervous just now, are you not?" said I.

5. "Well, I should think so," he replied. "I have n't slept soundly for a
week. Do you know," he went on, speaking in a low tone, "I am almost
certain this train will run off the track and break my neck before I get
to Boston. I have had too much good luck lately for one man. It can't
last. It rains so hard, sometimes, that you think it's never going to
stop; then it shines so bright you think it's always going to shine; and
just as you are settle in either belief, you are knocked over by a change,
to show you that you know nothing about it."

6. "Well, according to your philosophy," I said, "you will continue to
have sunshine because you are expecting a storm." "Perhaps so," he
replied; "but it is curious that the only thing which makes me think I
shall get through safe is, I fear that I shall not."

7. "I am a machinist," he continued; "I made a discovery; nobody believed
in it; I spent all my money in trying to bring it out; I mortgaged my
home--everything went. Everybody laughed at me--everybody but my wife. She
said she would work her fingers off before I should give it up. I went to
England. At first I met with no encouragement whatever, and came very near
jumping off London Bridge. I went into a workshop to earn money enough to
come home with: there I met the man I wanted. To make a long story short,
I've brought home 50,000 Pounds with me, and here I am."

8. "Good!" I exclaimed. "Yes," said he, "and the best of it is, she knows
nothing about it. She has been disappointed so often that I concluded I
would not write to her about my unexpected good luck. When I got my money,
though, I started for home at once."

9. "And now, I suppose, you will make her happy?" "Happy!" he replied;
"why, you don't know anything about it! She's worked night and day since I
have been in England, trying to support herself and the children decently.
They paid her thirteen cents apiece for making shirts, and that's the way
she has lived half the time. She'll come down to the depot to meet me in a