The Minister's Charge

at the clerk began to tap impatiently with his finger-tips on the registe

replied the clerk.

ut of a station; then a lot of string teams and slow, heavy-laden trucks got before him, with a turmoil of express wagons, herdics, and hacks, in which he was near being run over, and was yelled at, sworn at, and laughed at as he stood bewildered, with his lank bag in his hand. He turned and walked back past the hotel again. He felt it an escape, after all, not to have gone to sea; and now a hopeful thought struck him. He would go back to the Common and watch for those fellows who fooled him, and set the police on them, and get his money from them; they might come prowling round again to fool somebody else. He looked out for a car marked like the one he had followed down from the Common, and began to follow it on its return. He got ahead of the car whenever it stopped, so as to be spared the shame of being seen to chase it; and he managed to keep it in sight till he reached the Common. There he walked about looking for those scamps, and getting pushed and hustled by the people who now thronged the paths. At last he was tired out, and on the Beacon Street mall, where he had first seen those fellows, he found the very seat where they had all sat together, and sank into it. The seats were mostly vacant now; a few persons sat there reading their evening papers. As the light began to wane, they folded up their papers and walked away, and their places were filled by young men, who at once put their arms round the young women with them, and seemed to

one out of both his pockets. He dropped back upon the seat, and leaning his head against the back, he began to cry for utter d

th the leaves and roots of cabbages sticking out from the edges of the canvas that covered it, came by, and Lemuel followed it; he did not know what else to do, and it went so slow that he could keep up, though the famine that gnawed within him was so sharp sometimes that he felt as if he must fall down. He was going to drop into a doorway and rest, but when he came to it he found on an upper step a man folded forward like a limp bundle, snoring in a fetid, sodden sleep, and, shocked into new strength, he hurried on. At last the wagon came to a place that he saw was a market. There were no buyers yet, but men were flitting round under the long arcades of the market-houses, with lanterns under their arms, among boxes and barrels of melons, apples, potatoes, onions, beans, carrot

t him. He looked at the fat, white-aproned boy drawing coffee hot from a huge urn, and serving a countryman with a beefsteak. It was close and sultry in there; the open sugar-bowl was black with flies, and a scent of decaying meat came from the next cellar. "

nd he did not wake now till the sun was high, and the paths of the Common were filled with hurrying people. He sat where he had slept, for he did not know what else

small one that the dealer especially picked out for cheapness. It seemed pretty queer to Lemuel that a person should want anything for one apple. The apple when he ate it made him sick. His head began to ache, and it ached all day. Late in th

n the newspapers how they gave soup at the police-stations in Boston in the winter; perhaps they gave something in summer. He mustered up courage to ask a gentleman who passed where the nearest station w

le, going and coming, and lounging about. There were girls going along two or three together with books under their arms, and other girls talking with young fellows who hung about the doors of brightly lighted shops, and flirting with them. One of the g

stlessness waited round to see what they were looking at. By and by he was worked inward by the shifting and changing of the crowd, and found himself looking in at the door of a room, splendidly fitted up with mirrors and marble everywhere, and coloured glass and carved mahogany. There was a long counter with thr

said the boy. "It's Jim

ackers in it, and near it were two plates, one with cheese, and one with bits of dried fish and smoked meat. The sight made the water come into his mouth; he watched like a hungry dog, with a sympathetic working of the jaws, the men who took a bit of fish,

risk the same thing himself, when a voice in the crowd behind him said, "Hain't you

d he fell back beyond his grasp, and then lunged through the crowd, and tore round the corner and up the street. Lemuel followed as fast as he could. In spite of the weakness he had felt before, wrath and the sense of wrong lent him speed, and he was gaining in the chase when he heard a gir

e along,

and terror losing the strength his wrath had given him. He could scarcely drag his

pushed through another door, and found himself in a kind of office. A stout man in his shirt-sleeves was sitting behind a desk within a railing, and a large book lay open on the desk. This man, whose blue waist

dy," and a young girl, her face red with weeping and her hair disordered, came back with him. She held a crumpled straw hat with the brim torn loose, and in spite of her disordered l

desk, nodding his head toward Lemuel, who tried to speak;

wn over my eyes and tore it, and one of them held me by the elbows behind, and they grabbed my satc

asked the man

ul hesitation. Lemuel had read that book just before

w your name," said the of

, with mortificatio

" asked th

mptness, that must have come from shame from the blun

pursued th

wered the girl, with increasing interest. "I d

looked at he

ty solid. Guess I'll put you

much as that," said the gi

?" suggested the captai

am just five feet tw

it," said the ca

ted the girl, with

hecked himself and put o

iness-occ

dy," said

iden

Pleasant

ir, and turned his toothpick between h

, "you know you've got to come into

her falteringly, with a s

, or else it will be my duty to

the girl, her wide blue ey

e, we shouldn't put you in a cell; we should give you a goo

k me up!" she broke off indignantly. "It would be a pretty idea if I was first to be robbed of my satchel and then put in prison for it overnight! A great kind of law

the captain, permitting himself a

girl, now carried far beyond her

ght. "It is pretty rough.

r want of science, and added from emotio

and you'll come round to the police court

passionate glance at Lemuel, who had st

l have to send for yo

rl, in a sort of disgust, and h

aptain, and the girl, accept

I ain't the one! I was running after a fellow that passed off a counterfeit ten-dollar b

demanded the

!" cried Lemuel. "I never

why didn't you say that when she was here, inste

opped at its source again. His lips w

I don't want to do a man any harm if I can't do him some good. Next time, if you've go

speak, but the boy said nothing. The captain pulled

s your

el Ba

, while he wrote down Lemuel's name. "But if a man hain't got sense enough to speak f

ent

igh

red and

n't very sanguine about it. But what's the use

feet

upat

her carry o

ed the captain. "Slow as

ghby Pa

me, sure. And I must say it serves you right. If you can't speak for yourself, who's going to speak for you, do you suppose? Might send

lotted his bo

t Lemuel had been gone through before, and the officer's search of his pockets only revealed their emptiness. The captain s

, with a kindly face, squarely fringed with a chin-beard. The boy tried to sp

ked at him and th

o go through the mill this time. But if

tain indicated with a comprehensive roll of his he

inner corridor, a smell of coffee gushed out of it; the officer stopped, and Lem

when we want it. Try one

and respectfulness of people being shown about an insti

s on at one in the morning, and another at eight, and another at s

s?" asked t

the other, taking some matche

with the visitor whom he was lecturing. They passed some neat rooms, each with two beds in it, and he answered some question: "Tramp

of fresh whitewash. Each had a broad low shelf in it, and a bench opposite, a little wider than a man's body. Lemuel suddenly felt himself pushed into one of them, and then a railed door of iron wa

or drunkenness. But all the arrests before seven o'clock sent

pposite Lemuel's. "There seems to be only o

t o' women brought in 'most always ask

leep," said the visitor.

want to sleep. What they want to do is

he visito

ficer, "have two bunks, but we hard

ection of the rail was remove

em Lemuel's door; "see how the rails are bent there? You wouldn't think a man could squeeze through there, but w

d, and Lemuel, in h

ean," said one of the gentlemen. "And do

," said the officer, with comfortable satis

nts seem to be perfect, doc

per

icer, "we do the be

moved away; Lemuel heard the guide saying, "Dunno wha

ruffian," said one of the visitors, wi