invention were poor beside them. I myself am not so confident of this,
and would rather trust Mr. Charles Reade, say, for my amusement than any
chance combination of events. But I should be afraid to say how much his
pride in the character of the stranger's sorrows, as proof of the
correctness of his theory, prevailed with the contributor to ask him to
come in and sit down; though I hope that some abstract impulse of
humanity, some compassionate and unselfish care for the man's
misfortunes as misfortunes, was not wholly wanting. Indeed, the helpless
simplicity with which he had confided his case might have touched a
harder heart. "Thank you," said the poor fellow, after a moment's
hesitation. "I believe I will come in. I've been on foot all day, and
after such a long voyage it makes a man dreadfully sore to walk about so
much. Perhaps you can think of a Mr. Hapford living somewhere in the
neighborhood."

He sat down, and, after a pondering silence, in which he had remained
with his head fallen upon his breast, "My name is Jonathan Tinker," he
said, with the unaffected air which had already impressed the
contributor, and as if he felt that some form of introduction was
necessary, "and the girl that I want to find is Julia Tinker." Then he
added, resuming the eventful personal history which the listener
exulted, while he regretted, to hear: "You see, I shipped first to
Liverpool, and there I heard from my family; and then I shipped again
for Hong-Kong, and after that I never heard a word: I seemed to miss the
letters everywhere. This morning, at four o'clock, I left my ship as
soon as she had hauled into the dock, and hurried up home. The house
was shut, and not a soul in it; and I didn't know what to do, and I sat
down on the doorstep to wait till the neighbors woke up, to ask them
what had become of my family. And the first one come out he told me my
wife had been dead a year and a half, and the baby I'd never seen, with