in the eastern
Provinces.

"Are you?" cried the man, delighted. "I've lived in Boston, myself.
There's just been an awful fire near there."

"Indeed!" I said; "I heard nothing of it.' And I was startled with
the possibility that Boston had burned up again while we were
crawling along through Nova Scotia.

"Yes, here it is, in the last paper." The man bustled away and found
his late paper, and thrust it through the grating, with the inquiry,
"Can you read?"

Though the question was unexpected, and I had never thought before
whether I could read or not, I confessed that I could probably make
out the meaning, and took the newspaper. The report of the fire
"near Boston" turned out to be the old news of the conflagration in
Portland, Oregon!

Disposed to devote a portion of this Sunday to the reformation of
this lively criminal, I continued the conversation with him. It
seemed that he had been in jail before, and was not unaccustomed to
the life. He was not often lonesome; he had his workbench and
newspapers, and it was a quiet place; on the whole, he enjoyed it,
and should rather regret it when his time was up, a month from then.

Had he any family?

"Oh, yes. When the census was round, I contributed more to it than
anybody in town. Got a wife and eleven children."

"Well, don't you think it would pay best to be honest, and live with
your family, out of jail? You surely never had anything but trouble
from dishonesty."

"That's about so, boss. I mean to go on the square after this. But,
you see," and here he began to speak confidentially, "things are
fixed about so in this world, and a man's got to live his life. I
tell you how it was. It all came about from a woman. I was a
carpenter, had a good trade, and went down to St. Peter's to work.
There I got acquainted with a Frenchwoman,--you know what Frenchwomen
are,--and I had to marry her. The fact is, she was rather low
family; not so very low, you know, but not so good as mine. Well, I
wanted to go to Boston to work at my trade, but she wouldn't go; and
I went, but she would n't come to me, so in two or three years I came
back. A man can't help himself, you know, when he gets in with a
woman, especially a Frenchwoman. Things did n't go very well, and
never have. I can't make much out of it, but I reckon a man 's got
to live his life. Ain't that about so?"

"Perhaps so. But you'd better try to mend matters when you get out.
Won't it seem rather good to get out