seeing the Old Country, but had never since been rich enough to pay his
homeward passage. His manner and accent did not quite convince me that
he was an American, and I told him so; but he steadfastly affirmed, "Sir,
I was born and have lived in Ninety-second Street, Philadelphia," and
then went on to describe some public edifices and other local objects
with which he used to be familiar, adding, with a simplicity that touched
me very closely, "Sir, I had rather be there than here!" Though I still
manifested a lingering doubt, he took no offence, replying with the
same mild depression as at first, and insisting again and again on
Ninety-second Street. Up to the time when I saw him, he still got a
little occasional job-work at his trade, but subsisted mainly on such
charity as he met with in his wanderings, shifting from place to place
continually, and asking assistance to convey him to his native land.
Possibly he was an impostor, one of the multitudinous shapes of English
vagabondism, and told his falsehood with such powerful simplicity,
because, by many repetitions, he had convinced himself of its truth. But
if, as I believe, the tale was fact, how very strange and sad was this
old man's fate! Homeless on a foreign shore, looking always towards his
country, coming again and again to the point whence so many were setting
sail for it,--so many who would soon tread in Ninety-second Street,--
losing, in this long series of years, some of the distinctive
characteristics of an American, and at last dying and surrendering his
clay to be a portion of the soil whence he could not escape in his
lifetime.

He appeared to see that he had moved me, but did not attempt to press his
advantage with any new argument, or any varied form of entreaty. He had
but scanty and scattered thoughts in his gray head, and in the intervals
of those, like the refrain of an old ballad, came in the monotonous
burden of his appeal, "If I could only find myself in Ninety-second