"They are sufficient," replied the beggar. "You 'll find them sufficient;" and before Lionel could say another word the beggar had vanished from before his very eyes. He had not slipped away, nor slunk away, nor walked away, nor sped away,—he had simply vanished; and Lionel was left alone behind the grated door of the area-way gazing out upon a vacant space of pavement where, an instant before, the beggar had stood. The little boy rubbed his eyes and looked again. No, the beggar was gone, in very truth, and had left not so much as a rag behind him. But, look! what was that? Something lay upon the stone step just outside the gate, and it gleamed brightly from out its dusky corner. Lionel reached up and unlatched the heavy fastening. The great gate swung slowly in, and Lionel stepped briskly out. He bent down and grasped the shining object; it proved to be a little rule, and it was made of solid gold. He clasped it to his bosom.
"How beautiful!" he murmured. "Now I can measure things and carve them with my jack-knife, and they 'll be just exactly right. Before they have n't been quite straight, and when I 'd try to put the parts together they wouldn't fit; but now—"
And then suddenly the thought flashed across his mind: "Perhaps it belongs to the beggar and he might want it;" and without a moment's thought to his bare head, he passed quickly through the gateway and out into the street.
"It's such a beautiful rule," he thought, as he flew along. "I never saw such a darling. If it were mine, how I should hate to lose it! I must certainly find him and give it back to him; for I know he must feel just as I should if it were mine."
It never entered into his head to keep the thing; his one idea seemed to be to find the beggar and return to him his property. But before very long his breath began to come in gasps, and he found himself panting painfully and unable to run any farther. He paused and leaned against the huge newel-post at the foot of some one's outer steps. His cheeks were aglow, his eyes flashing, his thick curls rough and tumbled, and his bang in fine disorder. The deep embroidered cuffs and collar upon his blouse were crushed and rumpled; his little Zouave jacket was wind-blown and dusty, and his pumps splashed with mud from the gutter-puddles through which he had run. At home they would have said he "looked like distress;" but here, leaning wearily against the post, he was a most picturesque little figure.
Suddenly he felt a light touch upon his head, and then his bang was brushed back from his temples as though by the stroke of some kindly hand. He looked up, and there beside him stood the oddest-looking figure he had ever seen.
The stranger was clad from head to foot in a suit of silver gray. Upon his head he wore a peaked cap, upon his feet were the longest and most pointed of buskins; his doublet and hose were silver gray, and over his shoulders hung a mantle about which was a jagged border made after the most fantastic design, which shone and glittered like ice in sunlight. About his hips was a narrow girdle from which hung a sheathed dagger whose hilt was richly studded with clear, white crystals that looked to Lionel like the purest of diamonds.
Lionel felt that when he spoke it would probably be after some old-century fashion which he could scarcely understand; but there he was mistaken, for when the stranger addressed him, it was in the most modern manner and with great kindliness.
"Well, my son," he said cheerily, "tired out? I saw you run. You have a fine pair of heels. They have good speed in them."
"I wanted to catch up with someone,—an old beggar-man who lost something in our area-way. I wanted to return it to him," explained Lionel, breathlessly.