My home--no; I had none--the home, rather, of my kind old father-in-law, where dwelt, for the time being, my wife and child, was many hundred miles away. And how was I to reach it? I could not walk that distance, and sixteen cents would not carry me there. I looked up Broadway, and I looked down towards the Battery. I was alone amid an immense sea of humans, which ebbed and flowed continually past me. O, how wistfully I looked to see if there might be one face amongst the throng which I might recognize! but there was none. Strange, passing strange, not one of that host did I ever gaze upon before! Where--how--should I raise the money necessary to take me from this land of strangers? "Pinny, sir? Just one pinny. Me father is broken up, and me mither is sick at home. For God's sake give me jist one pinny to buy me some bread." I turned my gaze upon the picture of squalor and wretchedness just by my side. I need not describe her; she was just like a thousand others in that great Babel. "Here is doubtless a case of distress, but it is not of the heart, like mine. Such poor have no heart. Skin, muscle, head, stomach! heart, none!" "Where is your father, did you say?" I asked, mechanically. "In the Slarter-house; broken up from a fall from a stagin' in Twenty-sixth Street, sir," replied the beggar-girl, still extending her hand for a penny. "What is he doing in a slaughter-house, sis?" I inquired. "The Slarter-house is Bellyvew horse-pittle, sir; that's what we Irish call it, sir. Will ye give me the pinny, sir?" [Illustration: "PINNY, SIR? JUST ONE PINNY."] "O, yes, to be sure. Here are pennies for you. Go!" I knew of a poor Irishman who was brought in there at the hospital a few days before badly "broken up" from a fall on Twenty-sixth Street. His name was John Murphy; they are all named Murphy, or something similar; so it was useless to ask the child her father's name--probably it would have been Murphy. The conversation had the good effect of arousing me from my lethargy to action. I must not stay in this metropolis and starve. I could not remain and beg, like the Irish girl. I went to Professor ----, the dean, and requested him to take back my diploma, and let me have sufficient money to carry me home. He complied--God bless him!--and I took the Sound steamer that afternoon for the land of my nativity. What cared I if I was a second-class passenger; I would in two days see my wife and my child! * * * * * I had reached home, and was in the bosom of my family once more, and amongst my friends, in a Christian land; for which I "thanked God, and took courage." "Then pledged me the wine-cup, and fondly I swore Ne'er from my home and my weeping friends to part; My children kissed me a thousand times o'er; My wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart."