"I think I shall know you again, but hadn't you better give me a name?"
"Well, perhaps so," answered the other, after a moment's thought. "You may call me Roland Reed. Will you remember?"
"Yes, sir."
"I am obliged to leave this neighborhood at once, and can't conveniently carry the box," explained the stranger. "Here's something for your trouble."
Luke was about to say that he required no money, when it occurred to him that he had no right to refuse, since money was so scarce at home. He took the tin box and thrust the bank-bill into his vest pocket. He wondered how much it was, but it was too dark to distinguish.
"Good night!" said Luke, as the stranger turned away.
"Good night!" answered his new acquaintance, abruptly.
If Luke could have foreseen the immediate consequences of this apparently simple act, and the position in which it would soon place him, he would certainly have refused to take charge of the box. And yet in so doing it might have happened that he had made a mistake. The consequences of even our simple acts are oftentimes far-reaching and beyond the power of human wisdom to foreknow.
Luke thought little of this as, with the box under his arm, he trudged homeward.