Persistent misfortune followed John Briton, a florist who had a fair business. More than once his wife&apos;s brother had helped him over a stile, but business was none too good, and try as he would, Briton found it impossible to keep ...

The Tell-Tale Footprint

Persistent misfortune followed John Briton, a florist who had a fair business. More than once his wife's brother had helped him over a stile, but business was none too good, and try as he would, Briton found it impossible to keep his head above water. He got seriously behind with his rent, and, although his landlord exhibited much patience in granting him respite, his patience was at last exhausted, and he placed the matter in his lawyer's hands. In his extremity, Briton wrote to his brother-in-law, stating that unless he came to their assistance once again, they would be sold out. Verder, the brother-in-law, was a miserly person, and when Briton followed closely upon the delivery of his letter, he refused to render him any assistance. Exasperated at his relative's refusal, the florist left the house in a rage and was overheard by his neighbors to make threats against Verder. Angered by Briton's appeal to him, Verder was not in a good mood when a tramp called and asked his assistance. The tramp put his case plausibly, but he made no impression on the hard heart of the miserly Verder, who ordered the man off the premises. He went. Curiously enough, in the course of the morning, the tramp called at Briton's house, and the florist, in spite of his own sorrow, and the black outlook that threatened the happiness of himself, his wife and child, assisted the man as best he could, and his little daughter, seeing that the man needed boots, gave him a pair of her father's. Later on in the day, the body of Verder was found at the entrance of his house. News of his death spread quickly. Footprints had been discovered by the police. The size and style of the footprints corresponded to Briton's, and he was arrested. The child was quick-witted and remembered her gift of the boots to the tramp. This she explained to the police, and after diligent search, the tramp was discovered. But he stoutly maintained his innocence until the little daughter of the accused man made a desperate appeal to him to save her father. Then the callousness of the man broke down, and, in confessing that he had struck down the miser, he showed that all feeling of chivalry was not dead in him. The confession was sufficient to clear Briton.

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The Tell-Tale Footprint

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