"More—you refused to accept of a reward that I offered for the recovery of the money."
"I must have been dreaming. I am glad to think that there is one circumstance in my life that I can refer to and not blush," cried my friend, jocosely.
"Bah!" cried the farmer, who didn't believe that Mr. Brown was speaking what he felt. "You gave me good advice, and from it I trace all my property."
"I am glad to think that I have given one person good advice in my lifetime. I wish that I had taken some of it myself."
"I followed your directions and bought stock with my hundred pounds, and now look around and see my flocks. I count my cattle by the thousands," continued Mr. Wright, pointing to his immense pens.
"I remember you," my friend said, "and knew you the instant you spoke, but I preferred to let you recall reminiscences of by-gone days, to see if there is any gratitude in the world."
"Gratitude?" echoed Mr. Wright; "darn it, man, when you are tired of stopping with me I'll give you a hundred head of cattle."
"Don't do it, for mercy's sake. I prefer that you should give us something to eat now. Show your liberality that way, for we are famishing."
"Eat, man! you shall have the best that I can get. Here, Mike, Pat, Peter, where am you all? Take charge of the gentlemen's horses, and give them a feed of grain and a thorough rubbing down. Put supper on the table instantly, and brew us a bowl of punch that will make us sing like nightingales, and sleep like honest men. This way, gentlemen, there is my house—rough and uncouth, but better than the shelter of a tree during a rainy night. You are welcome to my hospitality."