“'S-sh-h! DON'T talk so! I feel as if the old man's spirit was with us this minute. “He's the apple of my eye,” he says, “and he run away, after me latherin' the life out of him with a wagon spoke. 'Twas all for his good, but he didn't understand, bein' but a child. And now I've heard,” he says, “that he's workin' at 116 East Blank Street in the city of New York. Cap'n Wixon, you're a man of money and a travelin' man,” he says (I was fishin' in them days). “When you go to New York,” he says, “I want you to promise me to go to the address on this paper and hunt up Jimmie. Tell him I forgive him for lickin' him,” he says, “and die happy. Will you promise me that, Cap'n, on your word as a gentleman?” And I promised him. And he died in less than ten months afterwards, poor thing.' “'But that was sixteen--eighteen--nineteen years ago,' says I. 'And the boy run away three years afore that. You've been to New York in the past nineteen years, once anyhow.' “'I know it. But I forgot. I'm ashamed of it, but I forgot. And when I was goin' through the things up attic at my daughter's last Friday, seein' what I could find for the rummage sale at the church, I come across my old writin' desk, and in it was this very piece of paper with the address on it just as I wrote it down. And me startin' for New York in three days! Barzilla, I swan to man, I believe something SENT me to that attic.' “I knew what sent him there and so did the church folks, judgin' by their remarks when the contribution came in. But I was too much set back by the whole crazy business to say anything about that. “'Look here, Jonadab Wixon,' I sings out, 'do you mean to tell me that we've got to put in the whole forenoon ransackin' New York to find a boy that run off twenty-two years ago?' “'It won't take the forenoon,' he says. 'I've got the number, ain't I?' “'Yes, you've got the number where he WAS. If you want to know where I think he's likely to be now, I'd try the jail.' “But he said I was unfeelin' and disobligin' and lots more, so, to cut the argument short, I agreed to go. And off we put to hunt up 116 East Blank Street. And when we located it, after a good hour of askin' questions, and payin' car fares and wearin' out shoe leather, 'twas a Chinese laundry. “'Well,' I says, sarcastic, 'here we be. Which one of the heathen do you think is Jimmie? If he had an inch or so more of upper lip, I'd gamble on that critter with the pink nighty and the baskets on his feet. He has a kind of familiar chicken-stealin' look in his eye. Oh, come down on the wharves, Jonadab, and be sensible.' “Would you believe it, he wa'n't satisfied. We must go into the wash shop and ask the Chinamen if they knew Jimmie Kelly. So we went in and the powwow begun.