less and penniless, and had
been forced to part with his own effects to procure necessary food
and lodging while looking for an employment. In the irony of fate that
morning the proprietors of a dry-goods store, struck with his good looks
and manners, had offered him a situation, if he could make himself
more presentable to their fair clients. Harry Flint was gazing half
abstractedly, half hopelessly, at the portmanteau without noticing the
auctioneer's persuasive challenge. In his abstraction he was not aware
that the auctioneer's assistant was also looking at him curiously, and
that possibly his dejected and half-clad appearance had excited the
attention of one of the cynical bystanders, who was exchanging a few
words with the assistant. He was, however, recalled to himself a moment
later when the portmanteau was knocked down at fifteen dollars, and
considerably startled when the assistant placed it at his feet with a
grim smile. "That's your property, Fowler, and I reckon you look as if
you wanted it back bad."

"But--there's some mistake," stammered Flint. "I didn't bid."

"No, but Tom Flynn did for you. You see, I spotted you from the first,
and told Flynn I reckoned you were one of those chaps who came back from
the mines dead broke. And he up and bought your things for you--like a
square man. That's Flynn's style, if he is a gambler."

"But," persisted Flint, "this never was my property. My name isn't
Fowler, and I never left anything here."

The assistant looked at him with a grim, half-credulous, half-scornful
smile. "Have it your own way," he said, "but I oughter tell ye, old
man, that I'm the warehouse clerk, and I remember YOU. I'm here for that
purpose. But as that thar valise is bought and paid for by somebody else
and given to you, it's nothing more to me. Take it or leave it."

The ridiculousness of quarreling over the mere form of his good fortune
here struck Flint, and, as his abrupt benefactor had as abruptly
disappeared, he hurried off with his prize. Reaching his cheap
lodging-house, he examined its contents. As he had surmised, it
contained a full suit of clothing of the better sort, and suitable to
his urban needs. There were a few articles of jewelry, which he put
religiously aside. There were some letters, which seemed to be of a
purely business character. There were a few daguerreotypes of pretty
faces, one of which was singularly fascinating to him. But there
was another, of a young man,