a thirty dollar silver watch some day, if he ever got where he could
afford it. Today Ida has given him a new, sumptuous gold Swiss
stem-winding stop-watch; and if any scoffer shall say, "Behold this thing
is out of character," there is an inscription within, which will silence
him; for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not
the watch the wearer.

I was asked beforehand, if this would be a wise gift, and I said "Yes,
the very wisest of all;" I know the colored race, and I know that in
Lewis's eyes this fine toy will throw the other more valuable
testimonials far away into the shade. If he lived in England the Humane
Society would give him a gold medal as costly as this watch, and nobody
would say: "It is out of character." If Lewis chose to wear a town
clock, who would become it better?

Lewis has sound common sense, and is not going to be spoiled. The
instant he found himself possessed of money, he forgot himself in a plan
to make his old father comfortable, who is wretchedly poor and lives down
in Maryland. His next act, on the spot, was the proffer to the Cranes of
the $300 of his remaining indebtedness to them. This was put off by them
to the indefinite future, for he is not going to be allowed to pay that
at all, though he doesn't know it.

A letter of acknowledgment from Lewis contains a sentence which raises it
to the dignity of literature:

"But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine providence saw fit to
use me as a instrument for the saving of those presshious lives, the
honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed."