plea of business, and after having given her some money I left her."

"And did thee never see her again?" his wife asked, almost with tears in
her eyes.

"No, I never saw her again," said Mr. Crowder; "I was careful not to do
that: but I did not neglect her; I caused good care to be taken of her
until she died."

There was a slight pause here, and then Mrs. Crowder said:

"Thee has known a great deal of poverty; in nearly all thy stories thee is
a poor man."

"There is good reason for that," said Mr. Crowder; "poor people frequently
have more adventures, at least more interesting ones, than those who are
in easy circumstances. Possession of money is apt to make life smoother
and more commonplace; so, in selecting the most interesting events of my
career to tell you, I naturally describe periods of comparative
poverty--and there were some periods in which I was in actual want of the
necessaries of life.

"But you must not suppose that I have always been poor. I have had my
periods of wealth, but, as I explained to you before, it was very
difficult, on account of the frequent necessity of changing my place of
residence, as well as my identity, to carry over my property from one set
of conditions to another. However, I have often been able to do this, and
at one time I was in comfortable circumstances for nearly two hundred
years. But generally, when I found myself obliged to leave a place where
I had been living, for fear of suspicion concerning my age, I had to