Just then an immense, angular, red-haired man sat down in front of the fire. He might have been the prodigal son of some Yankee farmer-statesman. He threw his arms around me, and though I had never seen him before, the Brotherhood of Man was established at once. He cast an empty bottle into the wood-box. He produced another. I would not drink. He poured down one-half of it. It snorted like dish-water going into the sink. He said: “That’s right. Don’t drink. This is the first time I ever drank. I have been on a soak two weeks. You see I was in Texas a long time, and went broke. I don’t know how I got here.” “Well,” I said, “we have this fire till they run us out. Enjoy yourself.” He wept. “I don’t deserve to enjoy anything. Anybody that’s made a fool of himself as I have done. I wish I were in Vermont where my wife and babies are buried. Somebody wrote me they were dead and buried just when I went broke.” Thereafter he was merry. “There was a man in Vermont I didn’t like who kept a fire like this. I went to see him every evening because I liked his fire. He would study and I would smoke.” He took out two dimes. “Say, that’s my last money. Let’s buy two tickets to the next station and get off and shoot up the town.” A hollow-eyed little man of middle age, grimy like a coal-miner, sat down on the other side of Mr. Vermont. He said he had been flagging trains for so long he could not tell when he began. He said he must wait three hours for a friend. He declined the bottle. He listened to Mr. Vermont’s story, told with variations. He put his chin into his hands, his elbows on his knees, and slept. Vermont threw himself on top of the bent back, his face wrapped in his arms, like a school-boy asleep on his desk-lid. Mr. Flagman slowly awoke, and cast off his brother, and slept again. Cautiously Vermont waited, to resume his pillow in a quarter of an hour, and be again cast off. Mr. Flagman sat up. I asked him if there was a train for Macon going soon. He said: “The through freight is making up now.” He gave me the conductor’s name. I asked if there was any one about who could write me a pass to Macon. He said, “The pay car has just come in, and Mr. Grady can give you a pass if he wants to.” I went out to the tracks. From a little window at the end of the car Mr. Grady was paying the interminable sons of Ham, who emerged from the African night, climbed the steps, received their envelopes, and slunk down the steps into the African night. At last I showed Mr. Grady my letter from Charles F. Powlison. Mr. Grady did not appear to be of a religious turn. I asked him permission to ride to Macon in the caboose of the freight, going out at one o’clock. I assured him it was beneath my dignity to crawl into the box-car, or patronize the blind baggage, and I was tired of walking in swamp. Mr. Grady asked, “Are you an official of the road?” “No, sir.” “Then what you ask is impossible, sir.” “Oh, my dear Mr. Grady, it is not impossible--”