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MR. STARR. If only Clara had not been so anxious about the Board meeting! (EYES FIVE-CENT PIECE.) Where can that penny be? (SEARCHES IN POCKETS, IS SEARCHING WHEN–) (ENTER R. H. U. E. SPAN OF WILD HORSES, SWIFTLY DRAGGING A CARRYALL. IN THE CARRYALL TWO CHILDREN SCREAMING. SPEED OF HORSES, 2.41.)

MR. STARR. Under the present circumstances life is worthless, or nearly so. Let me bravely throw it away!

(RUSHES UPON THE SPAN. CATCHES EACH HORSE BY THE BIT, AND BY SHEER WEIGHT CONTROLS THEM. HORSES ON THEIR METTLE; Mr. Starr ON HIS. ENTER, RUNNING, JOHN CRADOCK.)

JOHN CRADOCK. Whoa, whoa! Ha! they stop. How can I thank you, my man? You have saved my children’s lives.

MR. STARR (STILL HOLDING BITS). You had better take the reins.

John Cradock mounts the seat, seizes reins, but is eager to reward the poor, tattered wretch at their heads. Passes reins to right hand, and with left feels for a half eagle, which he throws, with grateful words, to Mr. Starr. Mr. Starr leaves the plunging horses, and they rush toward Prescott Street. (EXEUNT JOHN CRADOCK, HORSES AND CHILDREN.)

Half amused, half ashamed, Mr. Starr picks up the coin, which he also supposes to be half an eagle.

It proves to be a bright penny, just from the mint.

Mr. Starr lays it with delight upon the five-cent nickel. (ENTER A STREET CAR, L. H. L. E. Mr. STARR WAVES HIS HAND WITH DIGNITY, AND ENTERS CAR. PAYS HIS FARE, SIX CENTS, AS HE PASSES CONDUCTOR.)

In fifteen minutes they are at Maverick Square. Mr. Starr stops the car at the office of Siemens & Bessemer, and enters. Meets his friend Fothergill.

FOTHERGILL. Bless me, Starr, you are covered with mud! Pottery, eh? Runaway horse, eh? No matter; we are just in time to see Wendell off. William, take Mr. Starr’s hat to be pressed. Put on this light overcoat, Starr. Here is my tweed cap. Now, jump in, and we will go to the “Samaria” to bid Wendell good-by.

And indeed they both found Wendell. Mr. Starr bade him good-by, and advised him a little about the man be was to see in Dresden. He met Herr Birnebaum, and talked with him a little about the chemistry of enamels. Oddly enough, Fonseca was there, the attache, the same whom Clara had taken to drive at Bethlehem. Mr. Starr talked a little Spanish with him. Then they were all rung onshore.

TABLEAU: DEPARTING STEAMER. CROWD WAVES HANDKERCHIEFS.

SCENE III CHRISTMAS–THE END

At Mr. Starr’s Christmas dinner, beside their cousins from Harvard College and their second cousins from Wellesley College and their third cousins from Bradford Academy, they had young Clifford, the head book-keeper. As he came in, joining the party on their way home from church, he showed Mr. Starr a large parcel.

“It’s the `Alaska’s’ mail, and I thought you might like to see it.”

“Ah, well!” said Mr. Starr, “it is Christmas, and I think the letters can wait, at least till after dinner.”

And a jolly dinner it was. Turkey for those who wished, and goose for those who chose goose. And when the Washington pie and the Marlborough pudding came, the squash, the mince, the cranberry-tart, and the blazing plum-pudding, then the children were put through their genealogical catechism.

“Will, who is your mother’s father’s mother’s father?”

“Lucy Pico, sir!” and then great shouting. Then was it that Mr. Starr told the story which the reader has read in scene one,–of the perils which may come when a man has not a penny. He did not speak hastily, nor cast reproach on Clara for her care of the button. Over that part of the story he threw a cautious veil. But to boys and girls he pointed a terrible lesson of the value of one penny.