“‘By gum!’ that sounds like the mountaineers of my own West Virginia. Where did you pick it up, my man?” exclaimed the young doctor, bursting into a sudden rollicking laugh. At that laugh, that brought back echoes from somewhere in the long halls of memory, the fellow started in surprise, and for the first time looked squarely at the man who had befriended him. What he saw was surely not enough to pale his cheek, reddened with the generous warmth of the wine, or to bring that startled, furtive gleam into the stealthy eyes beneath the thick overhanging brows. He only saw one of nature’s noblemen in soul as well as form; tall, erect, handsome, with a princely air that would have been as conspicuous in poor attire as in his elegant evening suit, covered by the long, fur-lined overcoat. Yet one look startled the gazer, and the second made him get up and hustle toward the door, muttering: “I must get along now!” “Wait. Tell me of yourself,” answered Doctor Ludington genially, placing his back against the door while he continued: “You said you had not tasted food for days, and your clothing is tattered and threadbare so that it does not keep out the winter’s cold. I cannot let you go like this without helping you further. Are you out of work?” The fellow turned his face aside into the shadow muttering gruffly: “That’s it--out o’ work!” “Are you a stranger in the city?” “Been livin’ here all my life!” “You don’t look like it. I should take you for a countryman in distress.” “But I ain’t, sir. Leastwise, I’m in distress; ’tain’t no use to deny hit, starvin’ and freezin’, ’ithout a ruff to kiver my head. Yit I ain’t no country jay, no, sir! I was borned and brung up in New York,” protested his protégé, in a quavering voice of some intangible fear. “Then I’m mistaken in fancying I had seen you somewhere before in my own past. You were never in West Virginia, were you?” “I nuver even heerd o’ sech a place. I better be goin’, sir, and not takin’ up your time no longer.” “I am not in any hurry, although I see that you are. Yet I don’t understand why. You have no engagement with friends, have you?” “Not a friend in the hull cussed place, darn hit! In that country you’re talkin’ about, sir, that West Virginny, is hit, I bet thar don’t nobuddy go starvin’ in the streets, does they?” wistfully. “No, never, my man! There’s bread and work for all in my dear old native State!” cried the young physician with the kindling pride of the native born, and continuing: “I could have almost sworn you were from my own State! You have the Southern twang to your voice and some of the mountains idioms. Besides, your face and voice are strangely familiar, and I almost seem to have known you before. What is your name?” “Hit’s--hit’s--plain Smith, stranger--John Smith.” Doctor Ludington gave one of his genial laughs, and exclaimed: