railroad-station is a magnificent piece of architecture. Its
men are retired East-India merchants. Everybody in Jeru is
rich and has real estate. The houses in Jeru are three stories
high and face on the Common. People in Jeru are well-dressed
and well-bred, and they all came over in the Mayflower.

We stopped in Jeru five minutes.

When we were ready to continue our travels, Halicarnassus
seceded into the smoking-car, and the engine was shrieking
off its inertia, a small boy, laboring under great agitation,
hurried in, darted up to me, and, thrusting a pinchbeck ring
with a pink glass in it into my face, exclaimed, in a hoarse
whisper,--

"A beautiful ring, ma'am! I've just picked it up. Can't stop
to find the owner. Worth a dollar, ma'am; but if you'll give
me fifty cents--"

"Boy!"

I rose fiercely, convulsively, in my seat, drew one long
breath, but whether he thought I was going to kill him,--I
dare say I looked it,--or whether he saw a sheriff behind,
or a phantom gallows before, I know not; but without waiting
for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from the car as
precipitately as he had rushed in. I WAS angry,--not because
I was to have been cheated, for I been repeatedly and
atrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal
dared attempt on me such a threadbare, ragged, shoddy trick