but a tout, and
herd with the riff-raff and scum of creation. Now, once and for all,
if you desire to better yourself, I shall be glad to help you; but
otherwise I must simply refuse to have you about me any longer. Think
it over and come in to-morrow, and tell me your decision. Now, you
must excuse me as I have an engagement with this gentleman," and I
turned to greet a friend whose timely arrival saved me from the "touch"
which I could see Checkers was nerving himself to make.

I found however that to secure an immediate position for my protege was
a much more difficult matter than I had at first imagined. I spoke to
a dozen different people. Most of them assured me that they already
had more help than they had need of. Others needed no one now, but
thought they might in a month or two. My uncle said that "for my sake
he would try to make a place for my friend." But when I told him all
the facts, he shook his head and looked very dubious.

Meanwhile at frequent intervals, Checkers would drop into my office,
and chat of the happenings of other days, or tell me of his present
doings. It seemed to me, as I often told him, that if he would only
exercise one-half the thought and ingenuity in the pursuit of something
legitimate that he used in "separating the angels he got next to from
their gold," he would long since have achieved a fortune.

He delighted in telling of the successful working of some new scheme he
had figured out for the trapping of the unwary. And at each recital I
used to marvel at the boundless credulity of the average human.

But whenever I could I would start him off upon some incident in his
former life. In the story of his boyish courtship, the trials he
underwent in securing his wife, and his subsequent sorrows and
misfortunes, there was an exquisite blending of humor and pathos which
appealed to me immeasurably. It was seldom, however, that he would
talk of those days--the sadness of it all was still too near to him.
When he was in luck he never referred to them--he seemed to live in the
present alone. But when, as was frequently the case, his luck deserted
him and things went wrong, he would sometimes get a fit of the blues,
and, falling into a reminiscent mood, would find a sort of morbid
comfort in living it all over again. He would skip abruptly from scene
to scene, one incident or person suggesting another, and in his own
peculiar way he would describe a situation or picture a