So Skinny remained at home with the hired man, who promptly went to sleep on the hay in the barn, after the fashion of all hired men, leaving the strange boy to his own devices. That was exactly what he wanted, and taking a piece of paper and a pencil from the parlor table, he seated himself in a corner of the kitchen, and addressed the following letter to his employer, at the same time congratulating himself on the diligence which he had displayed at the night school in the Newsboys’ lodging-house, which had enabled him to write so freely and elegantly. This was what he had to say: “MR. KORWEIN— SIR:—I have got a job on a farm, and will do what you told me when I get the chance. No more at present, from SKINNY.” The chance which he had been looking for came to him rather unexpectedly that very afternoon, when Mrs. Wolcott asked him to take a letter to the post-office for her, and suggested at the same time that he should take a little walk around the village. “Wot sort uv tings is dere ter see in dis place?” asked the boy. “Well,” replied the other, smiling, “the usual afternoon walk is down over the bridge to the cemetery, and if you keep up along that road a mile further, you’ll find some very pretty woods that go down to the shore.” “All right,” replied the boy, “I’ll take in all de sights.” Stopping at the post-office, he mailed his own letter as well as the other, and then kept on down the village street, across the bridge and up the hill to the old burying-ground, in which a number of rustic couples were enjoying their regular Sunday afternoon stroll. These looked with some surprise and a little amusement, at the ragged boy, who was prowling about from one headstone to the other, reading the panegyrics and inscriptions, and evidently hunting for some particular grave. But although he searched diligently for nearly an hour, he could find no grave-stone that answered the description given him by Mr. Korwein, and, fearing that he was attracting more attention than he desired, he started to leave, with the intention of returning at some future day, when to his intense surprise, he heard his name called in a familiar voice, and on looking up saw some one whom he knew rapidly approaching him. Like other boys of his class, born and brought up in the streets of New York, and accustomed from the earliest period of infancy to take part in the great struggle of life, Skinny possessed a degree of stoicism that would have done credit to an Indian warrior, and it was seldom, indeed, that he was taken off his guard, no matter what happened. But this time his surprise was so great that he forgot himself, and standing stark still in the path, exclaimed “Hully gee!” The next moment Bruce Decker was wringing him by the hand, and saying: “What in the world brings you up here?”