It was a warm starry evening in May and, coming to the end of the narrow street in which he lived, Dan struck out across a small park, whistling softly to himself. He would have preferred his pipe, but in honor of the grand occasion had purchased a handful of five cent cigars. Placing one between his teeth, he fumbled in his pocket for the box of matches he had surely placed there before starting. His fingers closed instead on a small leather book. "What's this?" exclaimed Danny in surprise and, stepping under a park lamp, he began fluttering over the pages. It was filled with closely written paragraphs in a strangely cramped hand. The words were no words Danny had ever heard or seen. To prove it he settled his specs more firmly and read a whole paragraph aloud, moistening his lips between the long hard sentences, and keeping his cigar in place in his mouth with great difficulty. "Well, did anyone ever hear the like of that?" chuckled Danny, winking up at the statue of a Public Benefactor who stood facing him in a small plot of grass. "What do you think of it yourself, old felly?" "I hardly know," murmured the Public Benefactor, letting the arm which had been stiffly extended fall heavily at his side. "I hardly know. You see, I've never thought before, and--" "Merciful mackerel!" The cigar fell from Danny's lips, the high hat from his head and hurling the leather book into a clump of bushes, he turned and fled for his life, bumping into trees and benches and running in the opposite direction from the wedding. In fact, I am not sure he ever did get to the wedding at all. The Public Benefactor watched him go with round unwinking eyes, then stepping down from his pedestal, picked up the high hat, fortunately an extremely large one, and placed it gravely upon his head. "Now for an umbrella," murmured the stone gentleman determinedly. "I must have an umbrella. What I've suffered all these years, rain and snow. Ah--hh." Catching sight of an old lady hurrying down one of the cinder paths, he called loudly. "Stop! Stop! Give me that umbrella!" For some seconds the old lady who was quite deaf paid no attention, but when, looking over her shoulder, she saw a gray stone gentleman in a frock coat pounding after her, waving both arms, she picked up her skirts, jumped over a little hedge and fell face down among the pansies. Without feeling at all sorry, or stopping to help her to her feet, the Public Benefactor took the umbrella from her hand. Opening it with a little grunt of satisfaction and holding it over his head as he had seen other people do, he stepped carelessly over the old lady and continued down the cinder path. "I've always wanted to be like other people," mused the statue, striding along contentedly, "and now, I am. But I wonder why I never did this before?"