rything but
the practical fact,--"and maybe others do; but that's where you're
mistaken. It don't pay. It may pay HIM to be runnin' me as his
particular friend, to be quotin' me here and there, to be gettin'
credit of knowin' me and my friends and ownin' me--by Gosh! but I don't
see where the benefit to ME comes in. Eh? Take your own case down
there at Eureka Gulch; didn't he send for me just to show me up to you
fellers? Did I want to have anything to do with the Eureka Company?
Didn't he set me up to give my opinion about that shaft just to show
off what I knew about science and all that? And what did he get me to
join the company for? Was it for you? No! Was it for me? No! It was
just to keep me there for HIMSELF, and kinder pit me agin you fellers
and crow over you! Now that ain't my style! It may be HIS--it may be
honest and simple and loyal, as you say, and it may be all right for
him to get me to run up accounts at the settlement and then throw off
on me--but it ain't my style. I suppose he let on that I did that.
No? He didn't? Well then, why did he want to run me off with him, and
out the whole concern in an underhand way and make me leave with nary a
character behind me, eh? Now, I never said anything about this
before--did I? It ain't like me. I wouldn't have said anything about
it now, only you talked about MY being benefited by his darned
foolishness. Much I've made outer HIM."

Despicable, false, and disloyal as this was, perhaps it was the
crowning meanness of such confidences that his very weakness seemed
only a reflection of Captain Jim's own, and appeared in some strange
way to degrade his friend as much as himself. The simplicity of his
vanity and selfishness was only equalled by the simplicity of Captain
Jim's admiration of it. It was a part of my youthful inexperience of
humanity that I was not above the common fallacy of believing that a
man is "known by the company he keeps," and that he is in a manner
responsible for its weakness; it was a part of that humanity that I
felt no surprise in being more amused than shocked by this revelation.
It seemed a good joke on Captain Jim!

"Of course YOU kin laugh at his darned foolishness; but, by Gosh, it
ain't a laughing matter to me!"

"But surely he's given you a good position on the 'Guardian,'" I urged.
"That was disinterested, certainly."

"Was it? I call that the cheekiest thing yet. When he found he
couldn't make enough of