shame of being seen to chase it; and he managed to keep it in sight
till he reached the Common. There he walked about looking for those
scamps, and getting pushed and hustled by the people who now
thronged the paths. At last he was tired out, and on the Beacon
Street mall, where he had first seen those fellows, he found the
very seat where they had all sat together, and sank into it. The
seats were mostly vacant now; a few persons sat there reading their
evening papers. As the light began to wane, they folded up their
papers and walked away, and their places were filled by young men,
who at once put their arms round the young women with them, and
seemed to be courting. They did not say much, if anything; they just
sat there. It made Lemuel ashamed to look at them; he thought they
ought to have more sense. He looked away, but he could not look away
from them all, there were so many of them. He was all the time very
hungry, but he thought he ought not to break into his half-dollar as
long as he could help it, or till there was no chance left of
catching those fellows. The night came on, the gas-lamps were
lighted, and some lights higher up, like moonlight off on the other
paths, projected long glares into the night and made the gas look
sickly and yellow. Sitting still there while it grew later, he did
not feel quite so hungry, but he felt more tired than ever. There
were not so many people around now, and he did not see why he should
not lie down on that seat and rest himself a little. He made feints
of reclining on his arm at first, to see if he were noticed; then he
stretched himself out, with his bag under his head, and his hands in
his pockets clutching the money which he meant to make those fellows
take back. He got a gas-lamp in range, to keep him awake, and lay
squinting his eyes to meet the path of rays running down from it to
him. Then he shivered, and rose up with a sudden start. The dull,
rich dawn was hanging under the trees around him, while the electric