There seemed something familiar in the voice, and Mr. Dinsmore stopped and looked earnestly at its owner. A seamed, scarred face, thin, cadaverous, framed in with unkempt hair and scraggy beard--an attenuated form clothed in rags--these were what met his view, surely for the first time, for there was nothing familiar about either. No, not for the first time; for, with a start of recognition and a muttered curse, the mendicant dropped his hat, then stooped, hastily snatched it from the ground, and rushed away down an alley. "Ah, I know you now!" cried Mr. Dinsmore, giving instant pursuit. He could not be mistaken in the peculiarly maimed hand stretched out to regain the hat. Its owner fled as if for his life, but, weak from disease and famine, could not distance his pursuer. At last, finding the latter close at his heels, he stopped and faced him, leaning, panting and trembling, against a wall. "George Boyd, is it you? reduced to such a condition as this!" exclaimed Mr. Dinsmore, eying him searchingly. "You've mistaken your man, sir," panted the fugitive. "My name's Brown--Sam Brown at your service." "Then why did you run away from me?" coolly inquired the gentleman. "No, I cannot mistake that hand," pointing to the maimed member. "And you'd like to hang me, I suppose," returned the other bitterly. "But I don't believe you could do it here. Beside, what's the use? I'll not cumber the ground much longer, can't you see that? Travilla himself," he added, with a fierce oath, "can hardly wish me anything worse than I've come to. I'm literally starving--can hardly get enough food to keep soul and body together from one day to another." "Then come with me and I will feed you," Mr. Dinsmore said, his whole soul moved with pity for the miserable wretch. "Yonder is a restaurant; let us go there, and I will pay for all you can eat." "You don't mean it?" cried Boyd in incredulous surprise. "I do; every word of it. Will you come?" "A strange question to ask a starving man. Of course I will; only too gladly." They crossed the street, entered the eating-house, and Mr. Dinsmore ordered a substantial meal set before Boyd. He devoured it with wolfish voracity, his entertainer watching him for a moment, then turning away in pained disgust. Time after time plate and cup were filled and emptied, but at last he declared his appetite fully satisfied. Mr. Dinsmore paid the reckoning, and they passed out into the street together. "Well, sir," said Boyd, "I'm a thousand times obliged. Shall be more so if you will accommodate me with a small loan--or gift if you like, for I haven't a cent in the world." "How much do you think you deserve at my hands?" asked Mr. Dinsmore somewhat severely, for the request seemed to him a bold one under the circumstances. "I leave that to your generosity, sir," was the cool reply. "Which you expect to be great enough to allow you to escape the justice that should have been meted out to you years ago?"