"No, that one doesn't," answered Carlini, heartily. "No one has an easier or a better place than I have." "I suppose you've had it a long time," said the pedlar, in an inquiring tone. "About five years," replied Carlini, "but I knew him three or four years before that. Ah, Mr. Brown! one sees strange changes in this world. When first I saw my present master, he brought into my counting-house a draft for twenty thousand dollars, and I paid it as if it had been no sum at all. The next time I saw him, I was a waiter at an inn; and when he paid the bill he gave me a dollar for myself, without knowing me again." "That is a strange history, indeed," said the pedlar. "How came you to have such a fall, sir?" "Oh! revolution, revolution!" replied Carlini; "revolution, by which poor men think to better their condition, but which always ends in making them the first sufferers. It was the revolution in the New World that ruined me; but as it only brought me down to the same rank from which I rose, and indeed not quite to that, I have no cause to grumble. Mine's a very strange history altogether." "It must be so, indeed," answered Joshua Brown: "I should like of all things to hear it. I always like to hear people's histories, Mr. Carlini--not for curiosity's sake only, but because there is always something in them to show us how good God is to all his creatures, and to make us contented with our own lot; and also to hear a real history from a man's own mouth is to me like seeing a picture, especially if there are many ups and downs in it to represent the mountains and the valleys." "Well," said Carlini, "take another glass of wine, and I'll tell you something of it, for it is worth listening to." "And so is your master's, too, I should think," rejoined Mr. Brown, whose curiosity was directed more towards the history of Colonel Middleton himself than that of his servant. "Not half so much as mine," answered Carlini; "for his has been all prosperity from beginning to end, and mine has been continually changing, as you will see." CARLINI'S STORY.