're nearing the time
when the fleeting show will have flet. And hanged if I can see that
we're growing any wiser, or better, or richer--hey? Thirty cents! Ye
gods, Croaker, that man says thirty cents! Thirty cents, and my entire
capital is a lonely ten-cent piece that I kept for luck. Thirty cents,
and my last collateral security hocked and the ticket lost! Croaker, I'm
in despair."

The Croak dived into his trowsers pocket, took out a small roll of
bills, handed one to the bartender and another--a ten-dollar
greenback--to Dennie.

"Dear boy!" said Dennie, expanding into smiles. "What an uncommon
comfort you are, Croaker. Virtues such as yours reconcile me to a
further struggle with this cold and selfish world. It has used me pretty
hard since I saw you last, Croaker. Not long after you left for
the--er--West I met an elderly gentleman from Bumville, whom I thought I
recognized as a Mr. Huckster. I spoke to him, but found myself in error.
He said his name wasn't Huckster, of Bumville, but Bogle, of Bogle's
Cross Roads. I apologized, left him, and at the corner whom should I see
but Tommy, the Tick. Incidentally I mentioned to Tommy the curious
circumstance of my having mistaken Mr. Bogle, of Bogle's Cross Roads,
for Mr. Huckster, of Bumville.

"'Bogle!' said Tommy. 'Bogle! Why, I know Bogle well. He's a great
friend of my uncle's.' Whereupon Tommy hurried off after Bogle. I am not
even yet informed as to what took place between Bogle and Tommy, further
than that they struck up a warm and agreeable acquaintance; that they
stopped in at a dozen places on their way up-town; that poor old Bogle
got drunk and happy; that they went somewhere and took chances in a
raffle, and that they got into a dispute over $2000 which Bogle said
Tommy had helped to cheat him out of. A couple of Byrnes's malignant
minions arrested Tommy, and not satisfied with that act of tyranny and
oppression, they actually came to my lonely lodgings and arrested me.
What for? you ask in blank amazement. Has an honest and industrious
American citizen no rights? Must it ever be that the poor and
downtrodden are sacrificed to glut the maw of that ten-fold tyrant at
Police Headquarters? They charged me with larceny, with working the
confidence game, and despite my protestations and the eloquence of my
learned counsel, who cost me my last nickel, a hard-hearted and idiotic
jury convicted me, and that sandy-haired old flint at the General
Sessions gave me a