Through all my wanderings I had kept in pretty close touch with the old folks at home, and usually I was glad enough to receive a letter dated from the spot I loved so well. But this made me mad rather than glad, and yet the tidings in it were pleasant enough. My sister was to be married soon, and sent an urgent request, backed by both father and mother, that I should return home in time for her wedding. You can imagine my feelings. Here I was, hundreds of miles from home, without a cent in my pockets, or a roof in sight under which I might lay my head, and the folks at home were rejoicing in my prosperity and inviting me to a wedding. Thus far my life had been a pretty stormy one. I had worked numberless schemes, visited towns by the hundred, and had experience by the cubic ton, but I had no money. By this time, too, I scarcely had decent clothes. When I began to figure the whole thing over, and thought of my sister’s approaching marriage, and how I would like to be there to see the old folks and all the neighbors, I tell you right now I was pretty blue. It was, of course, an impossibility to get home, and I decided to write a letter telling them so, giving some plausible excuse if I could think of one, but the more I thought of my present condition the madder I got. I finally rose up and shook myself together. “Look here, old boy,” I thought to myself, “this will never do. The world is large, other people are making a living in it, and more than a living. There is money enough going, and all that you want to do is to see that you get your share. Here goes.” I took a start toward the office door, and it seems it was a relief to mine host. “Hope you don’t go away mad,” he said, “but the fact is, I can’t afford to have a lynching party raid my hotel. Don’t tell anyone I warned you, but get out of sight as soon as possible. The wonder is the crowd is not here now.” I made no great haste, but I certainly did not linger, and it is an actual fact that before I had got two squares away the crowd had commenced to gather and I could hear someone shouting, “Bring out the blamed rascal.” There was no use for me to go to the railroad station. Indeed, that was the very place for me to avoid. Without a doubt, the landlord would give the gang the tip that I had promised to leave town by the next train, and they would look for me there. There was no train leaving for at least an hour, and in that time a great deal that was unpleasant could happen. In my penniless condition, and with such trouble imminent, I knew that my best plan was to get out of town and into the country; and not only that, but to get as far away as I could in the shortest time possible, trusting to finding something on the road to keep the mill of life going until luck took a more friendly turn.