--worth and
accepted for fifty dollars.)

"Well, I handed them that, and they handed me the watch. You see them
slugs I had made myself outer brass filings and iron pyrites, and used
to slap 'em down on the boys for a bluff in a game of draw poker. You
see, not being reg'lar gov-ment money, it wasn't counterfeiting. I
reckon they cost me, counting time and anxiety, about fifteen dollars.
So, if this yer watch is worth that, it's about a square game, ain't
it?"

I began to understand the Man from Solano, and said it was. He
returned his watch to his pocket, toyed playfully with the chain, and
remarked, "Kinder makes a man look fash'nable and wealthy, don't it?"

I agreed with him. "But what do you intend to do here?" I asked.

"Well, I've got a cash capital of nigh on seven hundred dollars. I
guess until I get into reg'lar business I'll skirmish round Wall
Street, and sorter lay low." I was about to give him a few words of
warning, but I remembered his watch, and desisted. We shook hands and
parted.

A few days after I met him on Broadway. He was attired in another new
suit, but I think I saw a slight improvement in his general appearance.
Only five distinct colors were visible in his attire. But this, I had
reason to believe afterwards, was accidental.

I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said he had. "That gal,
and a mighty peart gal she was too, was there, but she sorter fought
shy of me. I got this new suit to go in, but those waiters sorter run
me into a private box, and I didn't get much chance to continner our
talk about them checks. But that young feller, Dashboard, was mighty
perlite. He brought lots of fellers and young women round to the box
to see me, and he made up a party that night to take me round Wall
Street and in them Stock Boards. And the next day he called for me and
took me, and I invested about five hundred dollars in them stocks--may
be more. You see, we sorter swopped stocks. You know I had ten shares
in the Peacock Copper Mine, that you was once secretary of."

"But those shares are not worth a cent. The whole thing exploded ten
years ago."

"That's so, may be; YOU say so. But then I didn't know anything more
about Communipaw Central, or the Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so I
thought it was a square game. Only I realized on the stocks I bought,
and I kem up outer Wall Street about four hundred dollars better. You
see it was a sorter risk, after all, for them