THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER. 163

and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged
enough already. But I took him across the muzzle with
my staff; and I think you may have heard him yelp, even
thus far off.” |

Philemon was glad to see him in such good spirits;
nor, indeed, would you have fancied, by the traveller’s
look and manner, that he was weary with a long day’s
journey, besides being disheartened by rough treatment
at the end of it. He was dressed in rather an odd way,
with a sort of cap on his head, the brim of which stuck
out over both ears. Though it was a summer evening,
he wore a cloak, which he kept wrapt closely about him,
perhaps because his under garments were shabby. Phile-
mon perceived, too, that he had on a singular pair of
shoes; but, as it was now growing dusk, and as the old
man’s eyesight was none the sharpest, he could not pre-
cisely tell in what the strangeness consisted. One thing,
certainly, seemed queer. The traveller was so wonder-
fully light and active, that it appeared as if his feet
sometimes rose from the ground of their own ‘accord, or
could only be kept down by an effort.

“T used to be light-footed, in my youth,”’ said Phile-
mon to the traveller. ‘But I always found my feet
grow heavier towards nightfall.”

“There is nothing like a good staff to help one along,”
answered the stranger; ‘‘and I happen to have an excel-
lent one, as you see.”

This staff, im fact, was the oddest-looking staff that
Philemon had ever beheld. It was made of olive-wood,
and had something like a little pair of wings near the