He would have earned the difference if he had brought me what was due.
"But caution often comes too late." And so I took my homeward way.
Deeming distrust of human kind the only lesson of the day.
Just two days later, as I sat, half dozing, in my office chair,
I heard a timid knock, and called in my brusque fashion, "Who is there?"
An urchin entered, barely seven--the same Scotch face, the same blue eyes--
And stood, half doubtful, at the door, abashed at my forbidding guise.
"Sir, if you please, my brother Jim--the one you give the crown, you know--
He couldn't bring the money, sir, because his back was hurted so.
"He didn't mean to keep the 'change.' He got runned over, up the street;
One wheel went right across his back, and t'other forewheel mashed his feet.
They stopped the horses just in time, and then they took him up for dead,
And all that day and yesterday he wasn't rightly in his head.
"They took him to the hospital--one of the newsboys knew 'twas Jim--
And I went, too, because, you see, we two are brothers, I and him.
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