well; but after all that has happened, I wished to
bury myself, and never see the face of an old friend again. I hoped to
live through, until my hand got well, and then I could have gone to
work again."

"Work? What work?"

"You know I had partly larnt a trade once--pity I ever left it!--and as
I retained knowledge enough of the use of tools to make common
bedsteads, after my school run down, and my visions of property all
vanished, I engaged in that business, and have contrived to get a poor
living by it ever since, until I cut my hand so dreadfully."

"But your wife--cannot she do something with her needle?"

"What! that woman?"----

He paused, and heaved a deep sigh. It was a bitter exclamation, from
the heart.

"No," he continued. "She has no faculty for getting along. She does
nothing but harass my life out."

"A misfortune, in--

"True enough, I missed the fortune; and I should not have come to you
now, but that we are freezing, and the children were shivering and
crying for something to eat, when I left."

"Children! How many have you?"

"The woman, you know, had one when I married her, and we have had two
since. One of these is dead. I am not sorry. Poor little fellow! he is
much better off."

But it is needless to continue the colloquy. My heart bled for him. His
tale of want and woe was told with the honest simplicity of truth. He
did not shed any tears, but looked as though he was past weeping--like
the personification of disappointment and despair.

From his relation it appeared, that during four years, my unfortunate
friend's only income had been derived from the manufacture of the
common article of furniture already mentioned. His place of residence
and workshop were in the remote eastern part of the city. He had never
the means of purchasing the materials for more than one bedstead at a
time, and was obliged, from his extreme poverty, to carry the timber on
his shoulders from the Albany Basin to his shop--a distance of two
miles. This labor he performed at evenings. The article done, he had
then to carry it to the furniture auction rooms in Chatham-square, for
sale. The profit, over and above the cost of the materials, constituted
the whole of his income--sometimes amounting to a dollar upon each, and
sometimes to not more than two and six-pence--according to the run of
the sales. And thus from day to day, for four long years, had the poor
fellow been living, as we have seen, without allow