ey astride of
the rain-drops.

I rise and throw open the door. A tall, shambling, loose-jointed
figure; a pinched, shrewd face, sun-browned and wind-dried; small,
quick-winking black eyes. There he stands, the water dripping from his
pulpy hat and ragged elbows.

I speak to him, but he returns no answer. With a dumb show of misery,
quite touching, he hands me a soiled piece of parchment, whereon I read
what purports to be a melancholy account of shipwreck and disaster, to
the particular detriment, loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni,
who is, in consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all charitable
Christian persons, and who is, in short, the bearer of this veracious
document, duly certified and indorsed by an Italian consul in one of our
Atlantic cities, of a high-sounding, but to Yankee organs
unpronounceable name.

Here commences a struggle. Every man, the Mohammedans tell us, has two
attendant angels,--the good one on his right shoulder, the bad on his
left. "Give," says Benevolence, as with some difficulty I fish up a
small coin from the depths of my pocket. "Not a cent," says selfish
Prudence; and I drop it from my fingers. "Think," says the good angel,
"of the poor stranger in a strange land, just escaped from the terrors
of the sea-storm, in which his little property has perished, thrown
half-naked and helpless on our shores, ignorant of our language, and
unable to find employment suited to his capacity." "A vile impostor!"
replies the lefthand sentinel. "His paper, purchased from one of those
ready-writers in New York who manufacture beggar-credentials at the low
price of one dollar per copy, with earthquakes, fires, or shipwrecks, to
suit customers."

Amidst this confusion of tongues I take another survey of my visitant.
Ha! a light dawns upon me. That shrewd old face, with its sharp,
winking eyes, is no stranger to me. Pietro Frugoni, I have seen thee
before. Si, signor, that face of thine has looked at me over a dirty
white neckcloth, with the corners of that cunning mouth drawn downwards,
and those small eyes turned up in sanctimonious gravity, while thou wast
offering to a crowd of halfgrown boys an extemporaneous exhortation in
the capacity of a travelling preacher. Have I not seen it peering out
from under a blanket, as that of a poor Penobscot Indian, who had lost
the use of his hands while trapping on the Madawaska? Is it not the
face of the forlorn father of six small c