HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 145 



diate money which alone could relieve him of 

 debt and restore him his wardrobe and the por- 

 traits of his mother and sister, which with a few 

 well-worn letters, were all he had to cheer him in 

 his exile. We sat till far into the night and until 

 my kindest sympathies were fully aroused by the 

 utter and almost childlike simplicity and frank- 

 ness with which the poor boy told of his sorrows. 

 I had been taught by a very ample experience to 

 look with much caution on German counts and 

 barons, — an experience that, if it was worth 

 what it had cost, I could not prize too highly; 

 but here was an entirely new type, a combination 

 of the gentlest breeding with an unsophistication 

 that argued more of a mother's care than of gar- 

 rison influences, and an utter absence of the devil- 

 may-care manner that army life in Germany had 

 hitherto seemed to give. With the improvidence 

 of one who had never known the lack of money, 

 he had lodged himself at the Everett House ; and 

 as I left him at its door, I resolved to" lose no 

 time in getting him enlisted and stopping an 

 expense that would only add to his troubles. 

 7 J 



