g good English, I'd like to know?" said Bob, apparently injured.

"Your language was plain, to be sure, and your English was good enough,"
apologized Herbert; "but I can't see why I should find anybody's pocket
book."

[Illustration: THE BENEVOLENT OLD GENTLEMAN PRESSES MONEY ON THE COUNTRY
BOY.]

"Jest what I thought, but you see you don't know the ways of New York.
You will learn, though, and you will be surprised to see how easy it is
to pick up a pocket book full of greenbacks and bonds--perhaps a hundred
thousand dollars in any one of 'em--and then you will take it to the man
what lost it, and he will give you a lots of money, maby a thousand
dollars or so--'twouldn't be much of a man as would do less than a
thousand. What do you think?"

"I don't know what to think. I cannot understand you, Bob Hunter."

"That's 'cause you don't know me, and ain't posted on what I'm saying.
Maby I am springin' it on you kinder fresh for the first day, though I
guess you will stand it. But tell me, Vermont, about the runaway horse
that you stopped."

"The runaway horse that I stopped!" exclaimed Herbert. "You must be mad
to talk in this way."

"Mad! Well, that's good; that's the best thing I've heard of yet! Do I
look like a fellow that's mad?" and he laughed convulsively, much to the
country lad's annoyance.

"No, you do not look as if you were mad, but you certainly act as if you
were," replied the latter sharply.

"Now look a here, Vermont, this won't do," said Bob, very serious again.
"You are jest tryin' to fool me, but you can't do it, Vermont, I'll tell
you that straight. Of course I don't blame you for wantin' to be kinder
modest about it, for I s'pose it seems to you like puttin' on airs to
admit you saved their lives. But then 'tain't puttin' on no airs at all.
Ef I was you I'd be proud to own it; other boys always owns it, and they
don't show no modesty about it the same as what you do, either. And I
don't know why they should, for it's something to be proud of; and you
know, Vermont, the funniest thing about it is that them runaways is
always stopped by boys from the country jest like you. Don't ask me why
it happens so, for I don't know myself; but all the books will tell you
that it is so. And jest think, Vermont, how many lives they save! You
know the coachman gets paralyzed, and the horses runs away and he
tumbles off his box, and a rich lady and her daughter--they are always
rich, and the daughter is alw