He made an effort for dignity as well as gayety, however, in stating himself to March, with many apologies for his persistency.

But, he said, he was on his way West, and he was anxious to know whether there was any chance of his 'Kasper Hauler' paper being taken if he finished it up.

March would have been a far harder-hearted editor than he was, if he could have discouraged the suppliant before him.

He said he would take the Kasper Hauler paper and add a band of music to the usual rate of ten dollars a thousand words.
Then Burnamy's dignity gave way, if not his gayety; he began to laugh, and suddenly he broke down and confessed that he had come home in the steerage; and was at his last cent, beyond his fare to Chicago.

His straw hat looked like a withered leaf in the light of his sad facts; his thin overcoat affected March's imagination as something like the diaphanous cast shell of a locust, hopelessly resumed for comfort at the approach of autumn.