"Jim saved her, father," said Jennie, patting the gray mare; "it was him fetched the engine." Joe took a step toward his son and held out his hand to him. "Jim," he said, "you're a better man nor yer father. From now on, you'n I run the truck on shares. But mind this, Jim: never leave mother no more." And in the clasp of the two hands all the past was forgotten and forgiven. Father and son had found each other again. "'Liza," said the truckman, with sudden vehemence, turning to the old mare and putting his arm around her neck, "'Liza! It was your doin's. I knew it was luck when I found them things. Merry Christmas!" And he kissed her smack on her hairy mouth, one, two, three times. THE DUBOURQUES, FATHER AND SON It must be nearly a quarter of a century since I first met the Dubourques. There are plenty of old New-Yorkers yet who will recall them as I saw them, plodding along Chatham street, swarthy, silent, meanly dressed, undersized, with their great tin signs covering front and back, like ill-favored gnomes turned sandwich-men to vent their spite against a gay world. Sunshine or rain, they went their way, Indian file, never apart, bearing their everlasting, unavailing protest. "I demand," read the painted signs, "the will and testament of my brother, who died in California, leaving a large property inheritance to Virgile Dubourque, which has never reached him." That was all any one was ever able to make out. At that point the story became rambling and unintelligible. Denunciation, hot and wrathful, of the thieves, whoever they were, of the government, of bishops, priests, and lawyers, alternated with protestations of innocence of heaven knows what crimes. If any one stopped them to ask what it was all about, they stared, shook their heads, and passed on. If money was offered, they took it without thanking the giver; indeed, without noticing him. They were never seen apart, yet never together in the sense of being apparently anything to each other. I doubt if they ever spoke, unless they were obliged to. Grim and lonely, they traveled the streets, parading their grievance before an unheeding day.