The first was the peculiar faculty now pretty generally known--his great gift, some, his great luck, others called it--for finding things lost.

It was no wonder the town crier had sought his acquaintance, and when secured, had cultivated it--neither a difficult task; for the boy, ever since he could remember, had been in the habit, as often as he saw the crier, or heard his tuck of drum in the distance, of joining him and following, until he had acquainted himself with all particulars concerning everything proclaimed as missing.

The moment he had mastered the facts announced, he would dart away to search, and not unfrequently to return with the thing sought.

But it was not by any means only things sought that he found.

He continued to come upon things of which he had no simulacrum in his phantasy.