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
gingham dress and a shawl a hundred years old, and she'll think she's
dressed up! Perhaps she won't have any fine dresses in a week or so, eh?'"
10. The stranger then strode down the passageway again, and getting in a
corner where he seemed to suppose that he was out of sight, went through
the strangest pantomime,--laughing putting his mouth into the drollest
shapes, and swinging himself back and forth in the limited space.

11. As the train was going into the depot, I placed myself on the platform
of the car in front of the one in which I had been riding, and opposite
the stranger, who, with a portmanteau in each hand, was standing on the
lowest step, ready to jump to the ground. I looked from his face to the