he continued. "You make me
feel like I couldn't operate a pea-nut stand. I'm the rube from the
back-blocks, sure thing. I ain't going to holler any--not me. I'm real
pleased to get acquainted. Shake."

I took his hand with as little self-consciousness as possible, not
yet having been able to understand what praiseworthy act I had
accomplished. I must admit none the less that I felt vaguely pleased
at his encomiums.

"There was a guy way back in Nevada used to have a style like yours.
They called him Happy Cloud Sim, and he had a hand like a ham.
See that grip? Well, Sir, Sim 'ud come right in here, lay his hand
somewheres about, and that grip 'ud vanish into the sweet eternal. You
could search the hull of the cars from caboose to fire-box and nary
a grip. He was an artist. Poor Sim, he overreached himself in Albany,
trying to attach a cash-register. The blame thing started ringing a
bell and shedding tickets all along the sidewalk. The sleuths just
paper-chased him through the burg. He was easy meat for the calaboose
that Fall."

I was at a loss to understand the relevance of this extremely
improbable narrative. It did not appear, on the face of it,
complimentary to connect me with a declared thief and gaol-bird. Still
it was my duty to be courteous to one who was for the time a national
guest.

"A most interesting story," I remarked, "and one which has the further
advantage of conveying a moral lesson."

"But you got Sim beat ten blocks," he resumed. "The way you threw your
top-coat up made Sim look like a last year's made-over. I never set
eyes on a dry-goods clerk as could fix a package slicker. I'll have a
lil something to tell the home town."

He looked out of the window. "Guess this is Harrow," he remarked, "and
we're pulling into the deepo. I may as well have my wad back."

So saying he put his hand into the folds of the coat over my head and
withdrew a roll of notes fastened with a rubber band. This roll he
then stuffed into his hip-pocket. I began to see the meaning of his
insinuations.

"If you think," said I indignantly, "that I saw you drop your notes
and deliberately rolled them up in the coat----"

"Nix on that stuff," he retorted jovially. "I know them dollar-bills;
they kinder skin theirselves off the wad and when you come to pay the
bartender they've hit the trail and you stand lonesome with a bitter
taste in your mouth, like LOT's wife."

The train stopped; the man stepped out with the u