er handsome eyes for a moment to Dashboard. "By all
means," she said, turning to the Man from Solano; "and as Mr. Dashboard
is one of the managers and you are a stranger, he will, of course, send
you a complimentary ticket. I have known Mr. Dashboard long enough to
know that he is invariably courteous to strangers and a gentleman."
She settled herself in her chair again and fixed her eyes upon the
stage.

The Man from Solano thanked the Man of New York, and then, after
shaking hands with every body in the box, turned to go. When he had
reached the door he looked back to Miss X., and said,--

"It WAS one of the queerest things in the world, miss, that my findin'
them checks--"

But the curtain had just then risen on the garden scene in "Faust," and
Miss X. was absorbed. The Man from Solano carefully shut the box door
and retired. I followed him.

He was silent until he reached the lobby, and then he said, as if
renewing a previous conversation, "She IS a mighty peart gal--that's
so. She's just my kind, and will make a stavin' good wife."

I thought I saw danger ahead for the Man from Solano, so I hastened to
tell him that she was beset by attentions, that she could have her pick
and choice of the best of society, and finally, that she was, most
probably, engaged to Dashboard.

"That's so," he said quietly, without the slightest trace of feeling.
"It would be mighty queer if she wasn't. But I reckon I'll steer down
to the ho-tel. I don't care much for this yellin'." (He was alluding
to a cadenza of that famous cantatrice, Signora Batti Batti.) "What's
the time?"

He pulled out his watch. It was such a glaring chain, so obviously
bogus, that my eyes were fascinated by it. "You're looking at that
watch," he said; "it's purty to look at, but she don't go worth a cent.
And yet her price was $125, gold. I gobbled her up in Chatham Street
day before yesterday, where they were selling 'em very cheap at
auction."

"You have been outrageously swindled," I said, indignantly. "Watch and
chain are not worth twenty dollars."

"Are they worth fifteen?" he asked, gravely.

"Possibly."

"Then I reckon it's a fair trade. Ye see, I told 'em I was a
Californian from Solano, and hadn't anything about me of greenbacks. I
had three slugs with me. Ye remember them slugs?" (I did; the "slug"
was a "token" issued in the early days--a hexagonal piece of gold a
little over twice the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece