"Dear!" retorted the baker, opening his eyes in astonishment; "why, my good sir, at what price do you expect to buy bread?"
"I've no doubt they're very good," said Peter, hastily; "but have you any stale loaves? I guess they'll be better for me."
"Yes," said the baker, "I believe I have, but they're not as good as the fresh bread."
"How do you sell your stale loaves?" inquired Peter, fumbling in his pocket for some change.
"I sell them for about half price—three cents apiece."
"You may give me one, then; I guess it'll be better for me."
Even Peter was a little ashamed to acknowledge that it was the price alone which influenced his choice.
The baker observed that, notwithstanding his decision, he continued to look wistfully towards the fresh bread. Never having seen old Peter before, he was unacquainted with his character, and judging from his dilapidated appearance that he might be prevented, by actual poverty, from buying the fresh bread, exclaimed with a sudden impulse: "You seem to be poor. If you only want one loaf, I will for this once give you a fresh loaf for three cents—the same price I ask for the stale bread."
"Will you?"
Old Peter's eyes sparkled with eagerness as he said this.
"Poor man!" thought the baker with mistaken compassion; "he must indeed be needy, to be so pleased."
"Yes," he continued, "you shall have a loaf this once for three cents. Shall I put it in a paper for you?"
Peter nodded.
Meanwhile he was busy fumbling in his pockets for the coins requisite to purchase the loaf. He drew out three battered cents, and deposited them with reluctant hand on the counter. He gazed at them wistfully while the baker carelessly swept them with his hand into the till behind the counter; and then with a sigh of resignation, at parting with the coins, seized the loaf and shambled out into the street.
He put the bundle under his arm, and hastened up the street, his mouth watering in anticipation of the feast which awaited him. Do not laugh, reader,—little as you may regard a fresh loaf of bread, it was indeed a treat to Peter, who was accustomed, from motives of economy, to regale himself upon stale bread.
The baker was congratulating himself upon having done a charitable action, when Peter came back in haste, pale with affright.
"I—I—," he stammered, "must have dropped some money. You haven't picked up any, have you?"
"Not I!" said the baker, carelessly. "If you dropped it here you will find it somewhere on the floor. Stay, I will assist you."
Peter seemed rather disconcerted than otherwise by this offer of assistance, but could not reasonably interpose any objection.
After a very brief search Peter and the baker simultaneously discovered the missing coin. The former pounced upon it, but not before the latter had recognized it as a gold piece.
"Ho, ho!" thought he, in surprise, "my charity is not so well bestowed as I thought. Do you have many such coins?" he asked, meaningly.
"I?" said Peter, hastily, "Oh no! I am very poor. This is all I have, and I expect it will be gone soon,—it costs so much to live!"
"It'll never cost you much," thought the baker, watching the shabby figure of the miser as he receded from the shop.
II.
A MISER'S HOUSEHOLD
Peter Manson owned a small house in an obscure street. It was a weather-beaten tenement of wood, containing some six or eight rooms, all of which, with one exception, were given over to dirt, cobwebs, gloom, and desolation. Peter might readily have let the rooms which he did not require for his own use, but so profound was his distrust of human nature, that not even the prospect of receiving rent for the empty rooms could overcome his apprehension of being robbed by neighbors under the same roof. For Peter trusted not his money to banks or railroads, but wanted to have it directly under his own eye or within his reach. As for investing his gold in the luxuries of life, or even in what were generally considered its absolute necessaries, we have already seen that Peter was no such fool as that. A gold eagle was worth ten times more to him than its equivalent in food or clothing.
With more than his usual alacrity, old Peter Manson, bearing under his cloak the fresh loaf which he had just procured from the baker on such advantageous terms, hastened to his not very inviting home.
Drawing from his pocket a large and rusty door-key, he applied it to the door. It turned in the lock with a creaking sound, and the door yielding to Peter's push he entered.
The room which he appropriated to his own use was in the second story. It was a large room, of some eighteen feet square, and, as it is hardly necessary to say, was not set off by expensive furniture. The articles which came under this denomination were briefly these,—a cherry table which was minus one leg, whose place had been supplied by a broom handle fitted in its place; three hard wooden chairs of unknown antiquity; an old wash-stand; a rusty stove which Peter had picked up cheap at an auction, after finding that a stove burned out less fuel than a fireplace; a few articles of crockery of different patterns, some cracked and broken; a few tin dishes, such as Peter found essential in his cooking; and a low truckle bedstead with a scanty supply of bedclothes.
Into this desolate home Peter entered.
There was an ember or two left in the stove, which the old man contrived, by hard blowing, to kindle into life. On these he placed a few sticks, part of which he had picked up in the street early in the morning, and soon there was a little show of fire, over which the miser spread his hands greedily as if to monopolize what little heat might proceed therefrom. He looked wistfully at the pile of wood remaining, but prudence withheld him from putting on any more.
"Everything costs money," he muttered to himself. "Three times a day I have to eat, and that costs a sight. Why couldn't we get along with eating once a day? That would save two thirds. Then there's fire. That costs money, too. Why isn't it always summer? Then we shouldn't need any except to cook by. It seems a sin to throw away good, bright, precious gold on what is going to be burnt up and float away in smoke. One might almost as well throw it into the river at once. Ugh! only to think of what it would cost if I couldn't pick up some sticks in the street. There was a little girl picking up some this morning when I was out. If it hadn't been for her, I should have got more. What business had she to come there, I should like to know?"
"Ugh, ugh!"
The blaze was dying out, and Peter was obliged, against his will, to put on a fresh supply of fuel.
By this time the miser's appetite began to assert itself, and rising from his crouching position over the fire he walked to the table on which he had deposited his loaf of bread. With an old jack-knife he carefully cut the loaf into two equal parts. One of these he put back into the closet. From the same place he also brought out a sausage, and placing it over the fire contrived to cook it after a fashion. Taking it off he placed it on a plate, and seated himself on a chair by the table.
It was long since the old man, accustomed to stale bread,—because he found it cheaper,—had tasted anything so delicious. No alderman ever smacked his lips over the most exquisite turtle soup with greater relish than Peter Manson over his banquet.
"It is very good," he muttered, with a sigh of satisfaction. "I don't fare so well every day. If it hadn't been for that unlucky piece of gold, perhaps the baker would have let me had another loaf at the same price."
He soon despatched the half loaf which he allotted to his evening meal.
"I think I could eat the other half," he said, with unsatisfied hunger; "but I must save that for breakfast. It is hurtful to eat too much. Besides, here is my sausage."
The sausage was rather burned than cooked, but Peter was neither nice nor fastidious. He did not eat the whole of the sausage, however, but reserved one half of this, too, for breakfast, though it proved so acceptable to his palate that he came near yielding to the temptation of eating the whole. But prudence,