WE ENTERTAIN A JAIL-BIRD
“Because the soles and heels were gone and the uppers were all that were left.”
“Tell them about it, Herbert,” remarked The Engineer with a smile, pulling away at his pipe.
“Oh, if you would, Monsieur Herbert! I tried to tell Monsieur High-Muck about it the night you arrived, but Monsieur Louis’ horn put it out of my head. It is better that he hears it from you”—and the old man’s lip quivered, his face lighting up with admiration. Herbert was his high-priest in matters of this kind.
“There is really nothing to tell,” returned Herbert. “I was tending cattle for a herdsman at the time up in the hills—I and a friend of mine. We had both run away from our ships and were trying the rolling country for a change, when one of those irresistible, overwhelming attacks of homesickness seized me, and without caring a picayune what became of me, I turned short on my tracks and struck out for the coast. A man does that sort of thing sometimes. I had no money and only the clothes on my back, but I knew the railroad was some forty miles away, and that when I reached it I could work my passage into civilization and from there on to London.
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