"Perhaps, but it is doubtful. As you can't remember the number of the car they will laugh at the idea, and perhaps take you for an impostor."
He glared at me like a caged animal, and made no reply, and I confess that I almost hoped he would never recover the coat. He did, however, after a couple of days, and as he brought it home he looked at me with great importance and said:
"There is the difference, Mrs. Bowser. Had you lost anything on the car it would have been lost forever. The street car people were even sending out messengers to find me and restore my property."
One day a laboring man called at the side door and asked for the loan of a spade for a few minutes, saying that he was at work near by; and he was so respectful that I hastened to accommodate him. Two days later Mr. Bowser, who was working in the back yard, wanted the spade, and I had to tell him that I lent it. As it was not to be found the natural inference was that the borrower had not returned it.
"This is a pretty state of affairs!" exclaimed Mr. Bowser when he had given up the search. "The longer some folks live the less they seem to know."
"But he looked honest."
"What of it? You had no business to lend that spade."
"I was sure he'd return it."
"Well, he didn't, and anybody of sense would have known he wouldn't. If somebody should come here and ask for the piano, I suppose you'd let it go. Mrs. Bowser, you'll never get over your countrified ways if you live to be as old as the hills. It isn't the loss of the spade so much, but it is the fact that the man thinks you are so green."
In the course of an hour I found the spade at the side steps, where the man had left it after using, but when I informed Mr. Bowser of the fact he only growled: