difficulty. Without a _lira_ ahead, and with no clothes but his rough
working-suit and his performing costume, he could not hope to escape
from this sort of bondage. The luck of number twenty-five had put him on
his feet.

"All Hungarians worship America," he said, "and when I saw that you
were an American I knew that my good fortune had begun in earnest. Of
course I believed America to be the land of plenty, and there could have
been no stronger proof of this than the generosity with which you, the
first American I had ever seen, gave me, a perfect stranger, such a
valuable prize. When I remembered the number of the ticket and the
letter in the alphabet, Y, to which this number corresponds, I was dazed
at the significance of the omen, and resolved at once to seek my fortune
in the United States. I sold the order on the tailor for money enough to
buy a suit of ready-made clothes and pay my fare to Genoa. From this
port I worked my passage to Gibraltar, and thence, after performing a
few weeks in a small English circus, I went to New York in a
fruit-vessel. As long as I was in America everything prospered with me.
I made a great deal of money, and spent a great deal. After a couple of
years I went to London with a company, and there lost my pay and my
position by the failure of the manager. In England my good luck all left
me. Circus people are too plenty there; everybody is an artist. I could
scarcely get anything to do in my line, so I drifted over to Paris."

We prolonged our stroll for an hour, for although I did not anticipate
any pleasure or profit from continuing the acquaintance, there was yet a
certain attraction in his simplicity of manner and in his naïve faith in
the value of my influence on his fortunes. Before we parted he
expressed again his ability to get me something to do, but I did not
credit his statement enough to correct the impression that I was in need