Pearl, struggling in the privacy of his little shop, was marching, step by step, with the great inventors, and never even suspected it until his best devices were a matter of record in the Patent Office to the credit of other men. One evening I found him asleep on his bench. A hand hung over the edge, and a letter had dropped from it. His scarred face had a weary look. I turned to leave without disturbing him when he awoke and greeted me. “Jake, I'm tired,” said he, as he rose, yawning, and began to fill his pipe. “I ain't up to the mark.” “What's the matter?” “Had a fall,” he said, passing the letter. “Read that.” I read the news which had disappointed him, and he said: “Yesterday I was a great man, an' wouldn't have sold out for a million dollars. I've rolled off the lap of luxury an' hit the floor with a bump. Old Aunt Luxury is a long lady, an' no mistake. It's forty feet to her knees, an' a good deal of a tumble. You see before you a melancholy ruin.” “Here,” I said, “let me lend you some money. I'll trust you with all I've got.” I had just received my pay, and showed it to him. “I'm so poor that I wouldn't trust myself,” he answered; “an' that bein' so, I wouldn't ask you to trust me.” He left me to get some wood for the fire, and I saw a Bible lying on his desk and put a twenty-dollar bill between its leaves, at the eleventh chapter of Job, and closed it again. I talked with him for an hour or so, and asked, when I was leaving, if he had read the Book of Job. “Not sence I was a boy,” he answered. “Read the eleventh chapter before you go to bed,” I suggested, and went away. Next day he came to my office. “We're off this evenin', with all our tools and implements,” said he. “If it hadn't been for you an' Job we couldn't have got away. You're a strong pair. I read in that chapter, 'Thou shalt forget thy misery and remember it as waters that pass away.' It was the very sermon I needed. My misery is gone. We have given you a vote o' thanks. It was hearty an' unanimous.” He was to take the freight and accommodation which left Heartsdale about eleven o'clock. He did not tell me his destination, but said that I should hear from him by-and-by. I went to the depot with Pearl and Barker, and saw them off. As I passed the house of the postmaster on my way home, a man in a tall beaver hat came out of its front door and walked hurriedly to a carriage and drove away. It was a cool night in November, and the collar of his overcoat was up around his ears. Something familiar in the step of the man caused me to turn and look at him and remember the incident. Three evenings later M. F. was with me on the wire of the hill circuit, deserted by all save us, and I was taking my part in this dialogue: “I have important news,” said Jo. “What?” “Father has had a letter from the postmaster of Heartsdale about Mr. Squares. The letter says that he is a man of good character and excellent family.”