“Yes; it’s this tiresome business. I should not wonder if I might lose ten thousand dollars through the folly of my agent. I shall probably have to go out to right things.” “I couldn’t afford to lose ten thousand dollars,” said the young man, regarding the capitalist before him with deference. “No, I expect not. At your age I wasn’t worth ten thousand cents. Now--but that’s neither here nor there. Give me a light, please, and I will go up to bed.” “He was about to say how much he is worth now,” soliloquized the clerk. “I wish he had not stopped short. If I can’t be rich myself, I like to talk with a rich man. There’s hope for me, surely. He says that at my age he was not worth ten thousand cents. That is only a hundred dollars, and I am worth that. I must keep it to pay my expenses to Colorado, if he should send for me in a few weeks.” The young man had noticed with some curiosity the rather oddly-shaped bundle which Stark carried under his arm, but could not see his way clear to asking any questions about it. It seemed queer that Stark should have it with him while walking. Come to think of it, he remembered seeing him go out in the early evening, and he was quite confident that at that time he had no bundle with him. However, he was influenced only by a spirit of idle curiosity. He had no idea that the bundle was of any importance or value. The next day he changed his opinion on that subject. Phil Stark went up to his chamber, and setting the lamp on the bureau, first carefully locked the door, and then removed the paper from the tin box. He eyed it lovingly, and tried one by one the keys he had in his pocket, but none exactly fitted. As he was experimenting he thought with a smile of the night clerk from whom he had just parted. “Stark,” he soliloquized, addressing himself, “you are an old humbug. You have cleverly duped that unsophisticated young man downstairs. He looks upon you as a man of unbounded wealth, evidently, while, as a matter of fact, you are almost strapped. Let me see how much I have got left.” He took out his wallet, and counted out seven dollars and thirty-eight cents.