ollars, with a few shining little
nuggets of gold interspersed among them.

Ned opened his eyes in amazement, and, taking his excited comrade apart
from the crowd, asked how he had come by so much money.

"Come by it!" he exclaimed; "ye could come by twice the sum, av ye
liked. Sure, didn't I find that they wos chargin' tshoo dollars--aiqual
to eight shillin's, I'm towld--for carryin' a box or portmanter the
length o' me fut; so I turns porter all at wance, an' faix I made six
dollars in less nor an hour. But as I was comin' back, I says to
myself, says I, `Larry, ye'll be the better of a small glass o'
somethin'--eh!' So in I goes to a grog-shop, and faix I had to pay
half-a-dollar for a thimbleful o' brandy, bad luck to them, as would
turn the stomik o' a pig. I almost had a round wi' the landlord; but
they towld me it wos the same iverywhere. So I wint and had another in
the nixt shop I sees, jist to try; and it was thrue. Then a Yankee
spies my knife,--the great pig-sticker that Bob Short swopped wi' me for
my junk o' plum-duff off the Cape. It seems they've run out o' sich
articles just at this time, and would give handfuls o' goold for wan.
So says I, `Wot'll ye give?'

"`Three dollars, I guess,' says wan.

"`Four,' says another; `he's chaitin' ye.'

"`Four's bid,' says I, mountin' on a keg o' baccy, and howldin up the
knife; `who says more? It's the rale steel, straight from Manchester or
Connaught, I misremimber which. Warranted to cut both ways, av ye only
turn the idge round, and shove with a will.'

"I begood in joke; but faix they took me up in arnest, an' run up the
price to twinty dollars--four pounds, as sure as me name's Larry--before
I know'd where I wos. I belave I could ha' got forty for it, but I
hadn't the heart to ax more, for it wasn't worth a brass button."

"You've made a most successful beginning, Larry. Have you any more
knives like that one?"

"Sorrow a wan--more's the pity. But that's only a small bit o' me
speckilations. I found six owld newspapers in the bottom o' me chist,
and, would ye belave it, I sowld 'em, ivery wan, for half-a-dollar the
pace; and I don't rightly know how much clear goold I've got by standin'
all mornin' at the post-office."

"Standing at the post-office! What do you mean?"

"Nother more or less nor what I say. I suppose ye know the mail's comed
in yisterday morning; so says I to myself this mornin', `Ye've got no
livin' sowl in the owld co