the ordinary approaches to
Mrs. Martin's house, he added, "Better go round by the woods, where you
won't meet ANY ONE."

The boy darted off through the open door, and the Editor stood for a
moment looking regretfully after him. He liked his little protege ever
since that unfortunate child--a waif from a Chinese wash-house--was
impounded by some indignant miners for bringing home a highly imperfect
and insufficient washing, and kept as hostage for a more proper
return of the garments. Unfortunately, another gang of miners, equally
aggrieved, had at the same time looted the wash-house and driven off the
occupants, so that Li Tee remained unclaimed. For a few weeks he
became a sporting appendage of the miners' camp; the stolid butt
of good-humored practical jokes, the victim alternately of careless
indifference or of extravagant generosity. He received kicks and
half-dollars intermittently, and pocketed both with stoical fortitude.
But under this treatment he presently lost the docility and frugality
which was part of his inheritance, and began to put his small wits
against his tormentors, until they grew tired of their own mischief and
his. But they knew not what to do with him. His pretty nankeen-yellow
skin debarred him from the white "public school," while, although as
a heathen he might have reasonably claimed attention from the
Sabbath-school, the parents who cheerfully gave their contributions to
the heathen ABROAD, objected to him as a companion of their children in
the church at home. At this juncture the Editor offered to take him
into his printing office as a "devil." For a while he seemed to be
endeavoring, in his old literal way, to act up to that title. He inked
everything but the press. He scratched Chinese characters of an abusive
import on "leads," printed them, and stuck them about the office; he put
"punk" in the foreman's pipe, and had been seen to swallow small type
merely as a diabolical recreation. As a messenger he was fleet of foot,
but uncertain of delivery. Some time previously the Editor had enlisted
the sympathies of Mrs. Martin, the good-natured wife of a farmer, to
take him in her household on trial, but on the third day Li Tee had
run away. Yet the Editor had not despaired, and it was to urge her to a
second attempt that he dispatched that letter.

He was still gazing abstractedly into the depths of the wood when he was
conscious of a slight movement--but no sound--in a clump of hazel near