After a twenty years’ absence a gentleman returned to the little New England town where he had been born and where he spent his boyhood. In the neighborhood in which he had been reared he found but one of the original residents remaining, an elderly Irish lady. She welcomed him back home again, and they fell to talking of the boys and girls with whom he had grown up. Finally he asked: “Tell me, Mrs. Daly, what ever became of poor little Jimmy McKenna who used to live in the shanty right down the street here?” “Poor, is it?” echoed Mrs. Daly. “Poor nothin’! Jimmy McKenna had no schoolin’, as you may remember, but when he grew up he got into the truckin’ business and from that he turned to contractin’, and though he couldn’t read and write, he made a million.” “Bully!” said the returned one. “And where is he now?” “As to that,” said Mrs. Daly, “I couldn’t say. I hope, though, he’s in Heaven. You see, sor, here about two years ago, Jimmy went down to the gravel pit where some of the byes was in swimmin’, an’ it bein’ a warm day he took off his clothes and waded in, and he waded out too far and he got over his head and was drownded.” “Oh, that’s too bad,” said the visitor. “To think of a boy who had no better start than Jim McKenna had doing so well in the world, and then meeting an end like that! And he made a million, you say? And yet he couldn’t read nor write.” “No,” said Mrs. Daly, “nor swim.” § 189 The Made-in-England Substitute An American actor with a reputation for wit went to a luncheon given by a famous actress to several members of her supporting company. Among the guests of honor was an English leading man, who rather fancied himself—and showed it. He monopolized the conversation, speaking copiously and feelingly of himself, his personality and his merits. From his place across the table the American eyed him with an enhancing disfavor. At length he turned to the man sitting next him on the right. “Our British friend over there is by way of being a regular ass, isn’t he?” he asked in a whisper. “Oh I’d hardly go so far as to say that,” answered his neighbor. “Well, he’ll do, won’t he, till one comes?” said the American. § 190 Practically Destitute Tilted back in his chair on the boatstore porch overlooking the river sat Cap’n Joe Fowler, as typical a Kentuckian as the fag end of the last century produced. A packet bound from Cincinnati to New Orleans, landed. Up the steep slope of the wharf came a tourist lady from up North somewhere. In the crook of her arm this lady bore the first Mexican hairless dog Cap’n Joe had ever seen. The animal was no larger than a full grown rat; in fact it rather resembled a rat. It seemed a miserable, naked, sickly little thing which shivered even though the air was balmy and flinched with vague uneasiness at every sound. As the lady drew close Cap’n Joe stood up and made a low bow to her.