LITMIR.BIZ

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up; 'cause how, folks is not half so drunk as you suppose. And so good night, and let's have no more words about it, and I'll consider you werry much of a gentleman."

      With these words the corpse picked up that fragment of the jug that had the handle to it, leaving the others, as well as his hat, behind him; and staggering out of the shed, he began to walk away. I was petrified; he was stalking off with my money, and a dozen of Mrs. Smith's silver spoons!

      "You villain!" said I, running after him, "give me back my property."

      "I'm a free man," said the sot; "I'm no man's property. And so, Charlie, don't go for to disturb me, for I knows my way home as well as anybody."

      "But the four hundred dollars and the silver spoons," said I, seizing him by the shoulders, and endeavouring to empty the pockets I had but a moment before filled. "If you resist, you rogue, I'll put you in jail."

      "I won't go to jail for no Charlie in the liberty," said the man of the jug, who to the last moment seemed to have no other idea than that he had fallen into the hands of a guardian of the night, and was in danger of being introduced to warmer quarters than those he was leaving. He spoke with the indignation of a freeborn republican, who felt his rights invaded, and was resolute to defend them; and, lifting up the fragment of his jug, he suddenly bestowed it upon my head with such good-will that I was felled to the earth. He took advantage of my downfall to decamp, carrying with him the treasure with which I had so bountifully freighted him. I pursued him as well as I could, calling upon the watch for assistance, and shouting murder and robbery at the top of my voice. But all was in vain; the watch were asleep, or I had wandered beyond their jurisdiction; and after a ten minutes' chase I found myself more bewildered than before, and the robber vanished with his plunder.

      CHAPTER IX.

      IN WHICH THE AUTHOR MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A PHILANTHROPIST

      I should have cursed my simplicity in mistaking a drunkard for a dead man; but I had other evils to distress me besides chagrin. I was lost in a snow-storm, fainting with fatigue, shivering with cold, and afar from assistance, there not being a single house in sight. It was in vain that I sought to recover my way; I plunged from one snow-bank into another; and I believe I should have actually perished, had not succour arrived at a moment when I had given over all hopes of receiving it.

      I had just sunk down into a huge drift on the roadside, where I lay groaning, unable to extricate myself, when a man driving by in a chair, hearing my lamentations, drew up, and demanded, in a most benevolent voice, what was the matter.

      "Who art thou, friend?" said he, "and what are thy distresses? If thou art in affliction, peradventure there is one nigh at hand who will succour thee."

      "I am," said I, "the most miserable wretch on the earth."

      "Heaven be praised!" said the stranger, with great devoutness of accent; "for in that case I will give thee help, and the night shall not pass away in vain. Yea, verily, I will do my best to assist thee; for it is both good and pleasant, a comeliness to the eye and a refreshment to the spirit, to do good deeds among those who are truly wretched."

      "And besides," said I, "I am sticking fast in the snow, and am perishing with cold."

      "Be of good heart, and hold still for a moment, and I will come to thy assistance."

      And with that honest Broadbrim (for such I knew by his speech he must be) descended from the chair, and helped me out of the drift; all which he accomplished with zeal and alacrity, showing not more humanity, as I thought, than satisfaction at finding such a legitimate object for its display. He brushed the snow from my clothes, and perceiving I was shivering with cold, for I had lost my cloak some minutes before, he transferred one of his own outer garments, of which, I believe, he had two or three, to my shoulders, plying me all the time with questions as to how I came into such a difficulty, and what other griefs I might have to afflict me, and assuring me I should have his assistance.

      "Hast thou no house to cover thy nakedness?" he cried; "verily, I will find thee a place wherein thou shalt shelter thyself from snow and from cold. Art thou suffering from lack of food? Verily, there is a crust of bread and the leg of a chicken yet left in my basket of cold bits, and thou shalt have them, with something further hereafter. Hast thou no family or friends? Verily, there are many humane persons of my acquaintance who will, like myself, consider themselves as thy brothers and sisters. Art thou oppressed with years as well as poverty? Verily, then thou hast a stronger claim to pity, and it shall be accorded thee."

      He heaped question upon question, and assurance upon assurance, with such haste and fervour, that it was some minutes before I could speak. I took advantage of his first pause to detail the latest, and, at that moment, the most oppressive of my griefs.

      "I have been robbed," I cried, "of four hundred dollars, and a dozen silver spoons, by a rascal I found lying drunk under a shed. But I'll have the villain, if it costs me the half of his plunder, and – "

      "Be not awroth with the poor man," said my deliverer. "It was a wickedness in him to rob thee; but thou shouldst reflect how wickedness comes of misery, and how misery of the inclemency of the season. Be merciful to the wicked man, as well as to the miserable; for thereby thou showest mercy to him who is doubly miserable. But how didst thou come by four hundred dollars and a dozen silver spoons? Thou canst not be so poor as to prove an object of charity?"

      "No," said I, "I am no beggar. But I won't be robbed for nothing."

      "Verily, I say unto thee again, be not awroth with the poor man. Thou shouldst reflect, if thou wert robbed, how far thou wast thyself the cause of the evil; for, having four hundred dollars about thee, thou mightst have relieved the poor creature's wants; in which case thou wouldst have prevented both a loss and a crime – the one on thy part, the other on his. Talk not, therefore, of persecuting the poor man; hunt him up, if thou canst, administer secretly to his wants, and give him virtuous counsel; and then, peradventure, he will sin no more."

      I was struck by the tone and maxims of my deliverer; they expressed an ardour of benevolence, an enthusiasm of philanthropy, such as I had never dreamed of before. I could not see his face, the night being so thick and tempestuous; but there was a complacency, a bustling self-satisfaction in his voice, that convinced me he was not only a good, but a happy man. I regarded him with as much envy as respect; and a comparison, which I could not avoid mentally making, betwixt his condition and my own, drew from me a loud groan.

      "Art thou hurt?" said the good Samaritan. "I will help thee into my wheeled convenience here, and take thee to thy home."

      "No," said I, "I will never go near that wretched house again."

      "What is it that makes it wretched?" said the Quaker.

      "You will know, if you are of Philadelphia," I replied, "when I tell you my name. I am the miserable Abram Skinner."

      "What! Abram Skinner, the money-lender?" said my friend, with a severe voice. "Friend Abram, I have heard of thy domestic calamities, and verily I have heard of those of many others, who laid them all at thy doors, as the author and cause thereof. Thou art indeed the most wretched of men; but if thou thinkest so thyself, then is there a hope thou mayst be yet restored to happiness. Thou hast made money, but what good hast thou done with it? thou hast accumulated thy hundreds, and thy thousands, and thy tens of thousands – but how many of thy fellow-creatures hast thou given cause to rejoice in thy prosperity? Truly, I have heard much said of thy wealth, and thy avarice, friend Abram; but, verily, not a word of thy kind-heartedness and charity: and know, that goodness and charity are the only securities against the ills, both sore and manifold, that spring from groaning coffers. I say to thee, friend Abram, hast thou ever given a dollar in alms to the poor, or acquitted a single penny of obligation to the hard-run of thy customers?"

      My conscience smote me – not, however, that I felt any great remorse for not having thrown away my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his words brought a new idea into my mind. It was misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving at happiness on the other, which had spurred me from transformation to transformation. Each change had, however, been productive of greater discontent than the other; and the woes with which I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had been even greater than those that afflicted me in my own proper original

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