me, I should not have been sufficiently courageous to have detained him.
The event, however, was widely different.

He looked at me and started. For an instant, as it were, and till he had
time to dart at me a second glance, he checked his pace. This behaviour
decided mine, and he stopped on perceiving tokens of a desire to address
him. I spoke, but my accents and air sufficiently denoted my
embarrassments:--

"I am going to solicit a favour which my situation makes of the highest
importance to me, and which I hope it will be easy for you, sir, to
grant. It is not an alms, but a loan, that I seek; a loan that I will
repay the moment I am able to do it. I am going to the country, but
have not wherewith to pay my passage over Schuylkill, or to buy a morsel
of bread. May I venture to request of you, sir, the loan of sixpence? As
I told you, it is my intention to repay it."

I delivered this address, not without some faltering, but with great
earnestness. I laid particular stress upon my intention to refund the
money. He listened with a most inquisitive air. His eye perused me from
head to foot.

After some pause, he said, in a very emphatic manner, "Why into the
country? Have you family? Kindred? Friends?"

"No," answered I, "I have neither. I go in search of the means of
subsistence. I have passed my life upon a farm, and propose to die in
the same condition."

"Whence have you come?"