gust he went up there dressed in a red bedquilt,
and told Sam he was King Solomon, and that the Queen of Sheba was
coming to visit him. He fetched along all the money he had--a little
bag full of silver--and dropped it in Sam's well. 'She won't come,'
says old man Redruth to Sam, 'if she knows I've got any money.'

"As soon as folks heard he had that sort of a theory about women and
money they knowed he was crazy; so they sent down and packed him to
the foolish asylum."

"Was there a romance in his life that drove him to a solitary
existence?" asked one of the passengers, a young man who had an
Agency.

"No," said Bildad, "not that I ever heard spoke of. Just ordinary
trouble. They say he had had unfortunateness in the way of love
derangements with a young lady when he was young; before he contracted
red bed-quilts and had his financial conclusions disqualified. I never
heard of no romance."

"Ah!" exclaimed Judge Menefee, impressively; "a case of unrequited
affection, no doubt."

"No, sir," returned Bildad, "not at all. She never married him.
Marmaduke Mulligan, down at Paradise, seen a man once that come from
old Redruth's town. He said Redruth was a fine young man, but when you
kicked him on the pocket all you could hear jingle was a cuff-fastener
and a bunch of keys. He was engaged to this young lady--Miss Alice--
something was her name; I've forgot. This man said she was the kind of
girl you like to have reach across you in a car to pay the fare. Well,
there come to the town a young chap all affluent and easy, and fixed
up with buggies and mining stock and leisure time. Although she was a
staked claim, Miss Alice and the new entry seemed to strike a mutual
kind of a clip. They had calls and coincidences of going to the post
office and such things as sometimes make a girl send back the
engagement ring and other presents--'a rift within the loot,' the
poetry man calls it.

"One day folks seen Redruth and Miss Alice standing talking at the
gate. Then he lifts his hat and walks away, and that was the last
anybody in that town seen of him, as far as this man knew."

"What about the young lady?" asked the young man who had an Agency.

"Never heard," answered Bildad. "Right there is where my lode of
information turns to an old spavined crowbait, and folds its wings,
for I've pumped it dry."

"A very sad--" began Judge Menefee, but his remark was curtailed by a
higher authority.

"What a charming story!" said