"How beautiful!" he murmured. "Now I can measure things and carve them
with my jack-knife, and they 'll be just exactly right. Before they
have n't been quite straight, and when I 'd try to put the parts
together they wouldn't fit; but now--"

And then suddenly the thought flashed across his mind: "Perhaps it
belongs to the beggar and he might want it;" and without a moment's
thought to his bare head, he passed quickly through the gateway and out
into the street.

"It's such a beautiful rule," he thought, as he flew along. "I never
saw such a darling. If it were mine, how I should hate to lose it! I
must certainly find him and give it back to him; for I know he must
feel just as I should if it were mine."

It never entered into his head to keep the thing; his one idea seemed
to be to find the beggar and return to him his property. But before
very long his breath began to come in gasps, and he found himself
panting painfully and unable to run any farther. He paused and leaned
against the huge newel-post at the foot of some one's outer steps. His
cheeks were aglow, his eyes flashing, his thick curls rough and
tumbled, and his bang in fine disorder. The deep embroidered cuffs and
collar upon his blouse were crushed and rumpled; his little Zouave
jacket was wind-blown and dusty, and his pumps splashed with mud from
the gutter-puddles through which he had run. At home they would have
said he "looked like distress;" but here, leaning wearily against the
post, he was a most picturesque little figure.

Suddenly he felt a light touch upon his head, and then his bang was
brushed back from his temples as though by the stroke of some kindly