TWILIGHT LAND

So it came about in a little while that the young man
found himself without so much as a single penny to bless
himself .withal. Then his fair-weather friends left him,
and the creditors came and seized upon his house and
his household goods, and turned him out into the cold
wide world to get along as best he might with the other
fools who lived there. :

Now the young spendthrift was a strong, stout fellow,
and, seeing nothing better to do, he sold his fine clothes
and bought him a porter’s basket, and went and sat in
the corner of the market-place to hire himself out to carry
this or that for felk who were better off in the world, and
less foolish than he.

There he sat, all day long, from morning until evening,
but nobody came to hire him. But at last, as dusk was
settling, there came along an old man with beard as white
as snow hanging down below his waist. He stopped in
front of the foolish spendthrift, and stood looking at him
for a while; then at last, seeming to be satisfied, he
beckoned with his finger to the young man. “Come,”
said he, “I have a task for you to do, and if you are
wise, and keep a still tongue in your head, I will pay
you as never a porter was paid before.”

You may depend upon it the young man needed no
second bidding to such a matter. Up he rose, and took
his basket, and followed the old man, who led. the way
up one street and down another, until at last they came
to a rickety, ramshackle house in a part of the town the
young man had, never been before. Here the old man
stopped and knocked at the door, which was instantly
opened, as though of itself, and then he entered with the
young spendthrift at his heels. The two passed through

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