He was short and thick-set: round-bodied—a bulbous round, like an onion—with alternate layers of waistcoats, two generally, the under one of cotton duck showing a selvage of white, and the outer one of velvet or cloth showing a pattern of dots, stripes, or checks, depending on the prevailing style at the wholesale clothier's where he traded, the whole topped by a sprouting green necktie. Outside this waistcoat drooped a heavy gold chain connecting with a biscuit-shaped watch, the under convex of its lid emblazoned with his monogram in high relief, and the upper concave decorated with a photograph of his best girl.

The face of this inviting and correctly attired young gentleman was likewise round; the ends of the mouth curving upward, not downward—upward, with a continuous smile in each corner, even when the mouth was shut, as if the laugh inside of him were still tickling his funny-bone and the corners of the mouth were recording the vibrations. These uncontrollable movements connected with other hilarious wriggles puckering with merriment under the pupils of his two keen, searching eyes, bright as the lens of a camera and as sensitive and absorbing.

Nothing escaped these eyes—nothing that was worth wasting a plate on. Men and their uses, women and their needs, fellow-travellers with desirable information who were cutting into the bulbous-shaped man's territory, were all focussed by these eyes and deluded by this mouth into giving up their best cash discounts and any other information needed. Some hayseeds might get left, but not Sam Makin.

"Well, I guess not! No flies on Samuel! Up and dressed every minute and 'next' every time!" Such was the universal tribute.

This knowledge did not end with humans. Sam knew the best train out and in, and the best seat in it; the best hotel in town and the best table in the dining-room, as well as the best dish on the bill of fare—not of one town, but of hundreds all over his territory. That is what he paid for, and that was what he intended to have.

When Sam was on the road, in addition to his grip—which held a change of waistcoats (Sam did his finest work with a waistcoat), some collars and a couple of shirts, one to wash and the other to wear, a tooth-brush and a comb—he held the brass checks of four huge trunks made of rawhide and strapped and cornered with iron. These went by weight and were paid for at schedule prices. When a baggage-master overweighed these trunks an ounce and charged accordingly there came an uncomfortable moment and an interchange of opinions, followed by an apology and a deduction, Sam standing by. Only on occasions like these did the smiles disappear from the corners of Sam's mouth.

Whenever these ironclads, however, were elevated to the upper floor of a hotel, and Sam began to make himself at home, the wriggles playing around the corners of his mouth extended quite up his smiling cheeks with the movement of little lizards darting over a warm stone.

And his own welcome from everybody in the house was quite as cordial and hilarious.

"Hello, Sam, old man! Number 31's all ready—mail's on your bureau." This from the clerk.

"Oh! is it you ag'in, Mister Sam? Oh—go 'long wid ye! Now stop that!" This from the chambermaid.

"It's good to git a look at ye! And them box-cars o' yourn ain't no bird-cages! Yes, sir—thank ye, sir." This from the porter.

But it was when the trunks were opened and their contents spread out on the portable and double-up-able pine tables, and Bullock & Sons' (of Spring Falls, Mass.) latest and best assortment of domestic cutlery was exposed to view, and the room became crowded with Sam's customers, that the smile on his face became a veritable coruscation of wriggles and darts; scurrying around his lips, racing in circles from his nose to his ears, tumbling over each other around the corners of his pupils and beneath the lids; Sam talking all the time, the keen eyes boring, or taking impressions, the sales increasing every moment.

The room became crowded with Sam's customers.

When the last man was bowed out and the hatches of the ironclads were again shut, anyone could see that Sam had skimmed the cream of the town. The hayseeds might have what was left. Then he would go downstairs, square himself before a long, sloping desk, open a non-stealable inkstand, turn on an electric light, sift out half a dozen sheets of hotel paper, and tell Bullock & Sons all about it.

On this trip Sam's ironclads were not wide open on a hotel table, but tight-locked aboard a Fall River steamer. Sam had a customer in Fall River, good for fifty dozen of B. & S.'s No. 18 scissors, $9—10 per cent. off and 5 more for cash. The ironclads had been delivered on the boat by the transfer company. Sam had taken a street-car. There was a block, half an hour's delay, and Sam arrived on the string-piece as the gangplank was being hauled aboard.

"Look out, young feller!" said the wharf man; "you're left."

"Look again, you Su-markee!" (nobody knows what Sam means by this epithet), and the drummer threw his leg over the rail of the slowly moving steamer and dropped on her deck as noiselessly as a cat. This done, he lifted a cigar from a bunch stuffed in the outside pocket of the prevailing waistcoat, bit off the end, swept a match along the seam of his "pants" (Sam's own), lit the end of the domestic, blew a ring toward the fast-disappearing wharfman, and turned to get his ticket and state-room, neither of which had he secured.

Just here Mr. Samuel Makin, of Bullock & Sons, manufacturers, etc., etc., received a slight shock.

There was a ticket-office and a clerk, and a rack of state-room keys, just as Sam had expected, but there was also a cue of passengers—a long, winding snake of a cue beginning at the window framing the clerk's face and ending on the upper deck. This crawling line of expectants was of an almost uniform color, so far as hats were concerned—most of them dark blue and all of them banded about with a gold cord and acorns. The shoulders varied a little, showing a shoulder-strap here and there, and once in a while the top of a medal pinned to a breast pressed tight against some comrade's back. Lower down, whenever the snake parted for an instant, could be seen an armless sleeve and a pair of crutches. As the head of this cue reached the window a key was passed out and the fortunate owner broke away, the coveted prize in his hand, and another expectant took his place.

Sam watched the line for a moment and then turned to a by-stander:

"What's going on here?—a camp-meeting?"

"No. Grand Army of the Republic—going to Boston for two days. Ain't been a berth aboard here for a week. Sofas are going at two dollars, and pillows at seventy-five cents."

Sam's mind reverted for a moment to the look on the wharfman's face, and the corners of his mouth began to play. He edged nearer to the window and caught the clerk's eye.

"No hurry, Billy," and Sam winked, and all the lizards darted out and began racing around the corners of his mouth. "'Tend to these gents first—I'll call later. Number 15, ain't it?"

The clerk moved the upper lid of his left eye a hair's breadth, took a key from the rack and slipped it under a pile of papers on his desk.

Sam caught the vibration of the lid, tilted his domestic at a higher angle, and went out to view the harbor and the Statue of Liberty and the bridge—any old thing that pleased him. Then this expression slipped from between his lips:

"That was one on the hayseeds! Cold day when you're left, Samuel!"

When supper-time arrived the crowd was so great that checks were issued for two tables, an hour apart. When the captain of the boat and the ranking officer of the G. A. R. filed in, followed by a hungry mob, a lone man was discovered seated at a table nearest the galley where the dishes were hottest and best served. It was Sam. He had come in through the pantry, and the head steward—Sam had known him for years, nearly as long as he had known the clerk—had attended to the other details, one of which was a dish of soft-shell crabs, only enough for half a dozen passengers, and which toothsome viands the head steward scratched off the bill of fare the moment they had been swallowed.

That night Sam sat up on deck until the moon rose over Middle Ground Light, talking shop to another drummer, and then he started for state-room Number 15 with an upper and lower berth (both Sam's), including a set of curtains for each berth—a chair, a washbowl, life-preserver, and swinging light. On his way to this Oriental boudoir he passed through the saloon. It was occupied by a miscellaneous assortment of human beings—men, women and children in all positions of discomfort—some sprawled out on the stationary sofas, some flat on the carpet, their backs to the panelling; others nodding on the staircase, determined to sit it out until daylight. On the deck below, close against the woodwork, rolled up in their coats, was here and there a veteran. They had slept that way many a time in the old days with the dull sound of a distant battery lulling them to sleep—they rather liked it.

The next morning, when the crowd swarmed out to board the train at Fall River, Sam tarried a moment at the now deserted ticket-office, smiled blandly at Billy, and laid a greenback on the sill.

"What's the matter, old man, with my holding on to Number 15 till I come back? This boat goes back to New York day after to-morrow, doesn't she?"

Billy nodded, picked up a lead-pencil and put a cross against Number 15; then he handed Sam back his change and the key.

All that day in Fall River Sam sold cutlery, the ironclads doing service. The next day he went to Boston on a later train than the crowd, and had almost a whole car to himself. The third day he returned to Fall River an hour ahead of the special train carrying the Grand Army, and again with half the car to himself. When the special rolled into the depot and was shunted on to the steamboat dock, it looked, in perspective from where Sam stood, like a tenement-house on a hot Sunday—every window and door stuffed with heads, arms, and legs.

Sam studied the mob for a few minutes, felt in his "pants" pocket for his key, gave it one or two loving pats with his fingers, and took a turn up the dock where it was cooler and where the human avalanche wouldn't run over him.

When the tenement-house was at last unloaded, it was discovered that it had contained twice as many people as had filled it two days before. They had gone to Boston by different lines, and being now tired out and penniless were returning home by the cheapest and most comfortable route. They wanted the salt zephyrs of the sea to fan them to sleep, and the fish and clams and other marine delicacies so lavishly served on the Fall River Line as a tonic for their depleted systems.

Not the eager, expectant crowd that with band playing and flags flying had swept out of the depot the day of the advance on Boston! Not that kind of a crowd at all, but a bedraggled, forlorn, utterly exhausted and worn-out crowd; children crying, and pulled along by one arm or hugged to perspiring breasts; uniforms yellow with dust; men struggling to keep the surging mass from wives who had hardly strength left for another step; flags furled; bass drum with a hole in it; band silent.

Sam looked on and again patted his key. The hayseeds had aired their collars and had "got it in the neck." No G. A. R. for Samuel; no excursions, no celebrations, no picnics for him. He had all his teeth, and an extra wisdom molar for Sundays.

The contents of the tenement now began to press through the closed shed on their way to the gangplank, and Sam, realizing the size of the mob, and fearing that half of them, including himself, would be left on the dock, slipped into the current and was swept over the temporary bridge, across the deck and up the main staircase leading to the saloon—up to the top step.

Here the current stopped.

Ahead of him was a solid mass, and behind him a pressure that increased every moment and that threatened to push him off his feet. He could get neither forward nor back.

A number of other people were in the same predicament. One was a young woman who, in sheer exhaustion, had seated herself upon the top step level with the floor of the saloon. Her hair was dishevelled, her bonnet awry, her pretty silk cape covered with dust. On her lap lay a boy of five years of age. Close to her—so close that Sam's shoulder pressed against his—stood a man in an army hat with the cord and acorn encircling the crown. On his breast was pinned a medal. Sam was so close he could read the inscription: "Fair Oaks," it said, and then followed the date and the name and number of the regiment. Sam knew what it meant: he had had an uncle who went to the war, and who wore a medal. His sword hung over the mantel in his mother's sitting-room at home. The man before him had, no doubt, been equally brave: he had saved the colors the day of the fight, perhaps, or had carried a wounded comrade out of range of a rifle pit, or had thrown an unexploded shell clear of a tent—some little thing like that.

Sam had never seen a medal that close before, and his keen lens absorbed every detail—the ribbon, the way it was fastened to the cloth, the broad, strong chest behind it. Then he looked into the man's firm, determined, kindly face with its piercing black eyes and closely trimmed mustache, and then over his back and legs. He was wondering now where the ball had struck him, and what particular part of his person had been sacrificed in earning so distinguishing a mark of his country's gratitude.

Then he turned to the woman, and a slight frown gathered on his face when he realized that she alone had blocked his way to the open air and the deck beyond. He could step over any number of men whenever the mass of human beings crushing his ribs and shoulder-blades began once more to move, but a woman—a tired woman—with a boy—out on a jamboree like this, with——

Here Sam stopped, and instinctively felt around among his loose change for his key. Number 15 was all right, any way.

At the touch of the key Sam's face once more resumed its contented look, the lizards darting out to play, as usual.

The boy gave a sharp cry.

The woman put her hand on the child's head, smoothed it softly, and looked up in the face of the man with the medal.

"And you can get no state-room, George?" she asked in a plaintive tone.

"State-room, Kitty! Why, we couldn't get a pillow. I tried to get a shake-down some'ers, but half these people won't get six feet of space to lie down in, let alone a bed."

"Well, I don't know what we're going to do. Freddie's got a raging fever; I can't hold him here in my arms all night."

Sam shifted his weight to the other foot and concentrated his camera. The man with the medal and the woman with the boy were evidently man and wife. Sam had no little Freddie of his own—no Kitty, in fact—not yet—no home really that he could call his own—never more than a month at a time. A Pullman lower or a third story front in a three-dollar-a-day hotel was often his bed, and a marble-top table with iron legs screwed to the floor of a railroad restaurant and within sound of a big-voiced gateman bawling out the trains, generally his board. Freddie looked like a nice boy, and she looked like a nice woman. Man was O. K., anyhow—didn't give medals of honor to any other kind. Both of them fools, though, or they wouldn't have brought that kid out——

Again the child turned its head and uttered a faint cry, this time as if in pain.

Sam freed his arm from the hip bone of the passenger on his left, and said in a sympathetic voice—unusual for Sam:

"Is this your boy?" The drummer was not a born conversationalist outside of trade matters, but he had to begin somewhere.

"Yes, sir." The woman looked up and a flickering smile broke over her lips. "Our only one, sir."

"Sick, ain't he?"

"Yes, sir; got a high fever."

The man with the medal now wrenched his shoulder loose and turned half round toward Sam. Sam never looked so jolly nor so trustworthy: the lizards were in full play all over his cheeks.

"Freddie's all tired out, comrade. I didn't want to bring him, but Kitty begged so. It was crossing the Common, in that heat—your company must have felt it when you come along. The sun beat down terrible on Freddie—that's what used him up."

Sam felt a glow start somewhere near his heels, struggle up through his spinal column and end in his fingers. Being called "comrade" by a man with a medal on his chest was, somehow, better than being mistaken for a millionaire.

"Can't you get a state-room?" Sam asked. Of course the man couldn't—he had heard him say so. The drummer was merely sparring for time—trying to adjust himself to a new situation—one rare with him. Meanwhile the key of Number 15 was turning in his pocket as uneasily as a grain of corn on a hot shovel.

The man shook his head in a hopeless way. The woman replied in his stead—she, too, had fallen a victim to Sam's smile.

"No, sir, that's the worst of it," she said in a choking voice. "If we only had a pillow we could put Freddie's head on it and I could find some place where he might be comfortable. I don't much mind for myself, but it's dreadful about Freddie—" and she bent her head over the child.

Sam thought of the upper berth in Number 15 with two pillows and the lower berth with two more. By this time the key of Number 15 had reached a white heat.

"Well, I guess I can help out," Sam blurted. "I've got a state-room—got two berths in it. Just suit you, come to think of it. Here"—and he dragged out the key—"Number 15—main deck—you can't miss it. Put the kid there and bunk in yourselves—" and he dropped the key in the woman's lap, his voice quivering, a lump in his throat the size of a hen's egg.

"Oh, sir, we couldn't!" cried the woman.

"No, comrade," interrupted the man, "we can't do that; we——"

Sam heard, but he did not tarry. With one of his nimble springs he lunged through the crowd, his big fat shoulders breasting the mob, wormed himself out into the air; slipped down a ladder to the deck below, interviewed the steward, borrowed a blanket and a pillow and proceeded to hunt up the ironclads. If the worst came to the worst he would string them in a row, spread his blanket on top and roll up for the night. Their height would keep him off the deck, and the roof above them would protect him from the weather should a squall come up.

This done, he drew out a domestic from the upper pocket, bit off the end, slid a match along the well-worn seam and blew a ring out to sea.

"Couldn't let that kid sit up all night, you know," he muttered to himself. "Not your Uncle Joseph: no sir-ee—" and he wedged his way back to the deck again.

An hour later, with his blanket over his shoulder and his pillow under his arm, Sam again sought his ironclads. Steward, chief cook, clerk—everything had failed. The trunks with the pillow and blanket were all that was left.

It was after nine o'clock now, and the summer twilight had faded and only the steamer's lanterns shone on the heads of the people. As he passed the companion-way he ran into a man in an army hat. Backing away in apology he caught the glint of a medal. Then came a familiar voice:

"Comrade, where you been keeping yourself? I've been hunting you all over the boat. You're the man gave me the key, ain't you?"

"Sure! How's the kid? Is he all right? Didn't I tell you you'd find that up-to-date? It's a cracker-jack, that room is; I've had it before. Tell me, how's the kid and the wife—kind o' comfy, ain't they?"

"Both are all right. Freddie's in the lower berth and Kitty sitting by him. He's asleep, and the fever's going down; ain't near so hot as he was. You're white, comrade, all the way through." The man's big hand closed over Sam's in a warm embrace. "I thank you for it. You did us a good turn and we ain't going to forget you."

Sam kept edging away; what hurt him most was being thanked.

"But that ain't what I've been hunting you for, comrade," the man continued. "You didn't get a state-room, did you?"

"No," said Sam, shaking his head and still backing away. "But I'm all right—got a pillow and a blanket—see!" and he held them up. "You needn't worry, old man. This ain't nothing to the way I sleep sometimes. I'm one of those fellows can bunk in anywhere." Sam was now in sight of his trunks.

"Yes," answered the man, still keeping close to Sam, "that's just what we thought would happen; that's what does worry us, and worry us bad. You ain't going to bunk in anywhere—not by a blamed sight! Kitty and I have been talking it over, and what Kitty says goes! There's two bunks in that state-room; Kitty's in one 'longside of the boy, and you got to sleep in the other."

"Me!—well—but—why, man!" Sam's astonishment took his breath away.

"You got to!" The man meant it.

"But I won't!" said Sam in a determined voice.

"Well, then, out goes Kitty and the boy! You think I'm going to sleep in your bunk, and have you stretched out here on a plank some'ers! No, sir! You got to, I tell you!"

"Why, see here!" Sam was floundering about now as helplessly as if he had been thrown overboard with his hands tied.

"There ain't no seeing about it, comrade." The man was close to him now, his eyes boring into Sam's with a look in them as if he was taking aim.

"You say I've got to get into the upper berth?" asked Sam in a baffled tone.

"Yes."

Sam ruminated: "When?"

"When Kitty gets to bed."

"How'll I know?"

"I'll come for you."

"All right—you'll find me here."

Then Sam turned up the deck muttering to himself: "That's one on you, Sam-u-e-l—one under the chin-whisker. Got to—eh? Well, for the love of Mike!"

In ten minutes Sam heard a whistle and raised his head. The man with the medal was leaning over the rail looking down at him.

Sam mounted the steps and picked his way among the passengers sprawled over the floor and deck. The man advanced to meet him, smiled contentedly, walked along the corridor, put his hand on the knob of the door of Number 15, opened it noiselessly, beckoned silently, waited until Sam had stepped over the threshold and closed the door upon him. Then the man tiptoed back to the saloon.

Sam looked about him. The curtains of the lower berth were drawn; the curtains of the upper one were wide open. On a chair was his bag, and on a hook by the shuttered window the cape and hat of the wife and the clothes of the sleeping boy.

At the sight of the wee jacket and little half-breeches, tiny socks and cap, Sam stopped short. He had never before slept in a room with a child, and a strange feeling, amounting almost to awe, crept over him. It was as if he had stepped suddenly into a shrine and had been confronted by the altar. The low-turned lamp and the silence—no sound came from either of the occupants—only added to the force of the impression.

Sam slipped off his coat and shoes, hung the first on a peg and laid the others on the floor; loosened his collar, mounted the chair, drew himself stealthily into the upper berth; closed the curtains and stretched himself out. As his head touched the pillow a soft, gentle, rested voice said:

"I can't tell you how grateful we are, sir—good-night."

"Don't mention it, ma'am," whispered Sam in answer; "mighty nice of you to let me come," and he dropped off to sleep.

At the breaking of the dawn Sam woke with a start; ran his eye around the room until he found his bearings; drew his legs together from the coverlet; let himself down as stealthily as a cat walking over teacups; picked up his shoes, slipped his arms into his coat, gave a glance at the closed curtains sheltering the mother and child, and crossed the room on his way to the door with the tread of a burglar.

Reaching out his hand in the dim light he studied the lock for an instant, settled in his mind which knob to turn so as to make the least noise, and swung back the door.

Outside on the mat, sound asleep, so close that he almost stepped on him, lay the Man with the Medal.

THE RAJAH OF BUNGPORE