The Newark journal., 1906-04-06
Luigi's Good Fortune By FRANK H. SWEET Author of"The Capture of the
 Expedition" etc.
By FRANK H. SWEET
(Copyrisht, l9O6, by Joseph E. Bowles.) )

Lulgl ran his puSh-caft into an al ley, looked sharply to the right and left, then stepped behind the cart and took his money from his pocket and counted it anxiously. Seventy-two cents-three lira and half. At home a lira would keep him. with prudence, for a whole week; here, it took lira to pay for his corner of a room for single night. and another lira for the rent of his push-cart And Rhettas mother had told him he must never finger at their fruit counter again un- til he could show at least hundred lira.
 A long, hopeless sigh started from 1 the depths of his chest. only to be cut in half by vigorous thump of his fist i upon the push-cart That was how l the man had done when he shouted to them from the top of barrel the night before. telling how the straight road to the presidential chair was through voting for the right alder man. 1t was a good, strong, vigorous way, get there" way, as the man had said; and once more Luigi's small Italian fist came down with the big American thump. Did he not have the three and a half lira already, and was not his cart rounded into pyramids with fresh fruit-two whole punches of banan', cut into five and seven and twelve fingers, to fit various needs, with half of an American box of or anges, and apple and peach and g-r-rape? He would hurry back and make the hundred lira in the quick New York way. and then take it to Rhetta's mother to buy fruit for their stand. stand was more lordly than cart and he and Rhetta would stay behind the counter and hold hands and sell, while the shrewd old mother did the buying and looked after their whole room-or perhaps two rooms as they became rich
 A vigorous push sent the cart from the alley back into the midst of the clashing turmoil of objurgation and wheeling and disputing the lodging of wagons and horses feet and the el- lowing of competitors. Luigi's eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed with the vigor of his thoughts, but some how, in this maelstrom of traffic. the attaining of the purpose did not seem so easy as it had back there in the al ley. All these keen-eyed. crowding vendors were after the same thing money, money, money; and they were veterans in the pursuit, while he was but a newcomer Could he hope to grasp the hundred lira in the wild scramble?
 All the good corners were occupied, all the eligible places along the curbs and at the crossings As he pushed his cart in toward the sidewalk from time to time. or sought a place near a corner. in hope of a customer, he was scowled at and thrust and threat cred aside. These were their places, they said He must go and find some unoccupied spot.
 50 he pushed on and on, keeping as close to one or the other sidewalk as he dared. and seeing customers pur- chase from carts adjoining without so much as noticing his entreating voice and beckoning fingers But of course it was natural Where there were so many carts, people bought from the mos convenient.
 However, Luigi had one quality for i success which few of his competitors l possessed, and that was liberality. l He had never heard of the great l French banker Lafitte, who was so l kind-hearted and generous that he was a universal dupe, yet who, be- cause of this very quality. rose from poor boy to be one of the richest and most influential men of France; or of many other great men whose chief 1 cause of success was the liberality that brought them friends and patron age. Indeed, if Luigi had paused to consider his generosity as a business factor. he would have felt depressed and very likely taken himself to task for the failing. When he gave bana- mas and oranges to big-eyed street urehins whom he caught watching his cart hungrily it was through mo- mentary kindly impulse, without thought of the past or future. But then Luigi was only Is and but three months Tn EllZaDetn street, anu tue warmth of his own sva9y Italy was still in his heart and eyes and voice. At length he stopped in the very busiest part of the street with two carts between him and the curb. He had not made a sale in an hour and, , if no better this spot could certainly ! be no worse: it certainly would afford at
 Among these objects were presently