“Say, Mr. Briggs,” said the passenger, hurrying along behind the brakeman, “you don’t s’pose there’s any chance for me to get a job in the railroad-company’s yard, do you?”

The brakeman turned with a sharp look which speedily softened as he saw an earnest appeal in the little man’s face.

“Well, Sam,” he replied, his words dragging slowly along, “the yard’s always full, an’ men a-waitin’.  You’d have to give bonds for good behavior, an’ honesty, an’—­”

“Never mind the rest, Mr. Briggs,” said the ex-convict, shrinking an inch or two in stature.  “I didn’t know about that, indeed I didn’t, or I—­”

“Well, you needn’t be a-Mr.-Briggs-in’ me, anyhow,” said the brakeman.  “I was only Jim before—­you left town, Sam, an’ I want you to go on callin’ me Jim, just the same.  Do you understand that, confound you?”

“Yes, Mr.—­Jim, I do; an’ may God bless you for sayin’ it!”

“Here we are; good luck by the car-load to you, Sam.”  Then the brakeman looked back into the car and roared,—­

“Bruceton.”

The discharged prisoner consumed a great deal of time and distributed many furtive glances as he alighted, though he got off the train on the side opposite the little station.  The train remained so long that when finally it started there was no one on the station platform but the agent, whose face was not familiar to the last passenger.

A gust of wind brought to the platform a scrap of a circus-poster which had been loosened by recent rain from a fence opposite the station.  The agent kicked the paper from the platform; Sam picked it up and looked at it; it bore a picture of a gorgeously-colored monkey and the head and shoulders of an elephant.

“Ain’t you goin’ to put it back?” he asked.

“Not much,” said the agent.  “I don’t rent that fence to the circus, or menagerie, or whatever it is.”

“Can I have it?”

“Findings are keepings,” said the agent, “especially when they ain’t worth looking for; that’s railroad rule, and I guess circus-companies haven’t got a better one.”

The finder sat down on the platform, took a knife from his pocket, and carefully cut the monkey and the elephant’s head from the paper.  Then he walked to the end of the platform and looked cautiously in the direction of the town.  A broad road, crossed by a narrow street, led from the station; into the street the little man hurried, believing himself secure from observation, but just then the door of a coal-yard office opened, and Judge Prency, who had been county judge, and Deacon Quickset emerged.  Both saw the new arrival, who tried to pass them without being recognized.  But the deacon was too quick for him; planting himself in the middle of the sidewalk, which was as narrow as the deacon was broad, he stopped the wayfarer and said,—­

“Samuel, I hope you’re not going back to your old ways again,—­fighting, drinking, loafing, and stealing?”