It is quite probable that of all the unfortunate adventurers that day singed in the yellow fire of that expert gambler's gold, Jack recognized himself as the most terribly burned. Putting his hands into his empty pockets, he sauntered dolefully about, scarcely able to look straight into the face of such friends as he chanced to meet. He acted as if hunting for something lost on the ground. Poor fellow, it was a real relief to him when some one treated him to a glass of lemonade, and, indeed, so much were his feelings relieved by the cool potation, that when, soon after, he met Minny Hart, he was actually smiling. "O, Jack!" cried the pretty girl, "I'm so glad to see you just now, for I do want to go into the minstrel show _so bad_!" She shot a glance of coquettish tenderness right into Jack's heart. For a single moment he was blessed, but on feeling for his money and recalling the luckless result of his late venture, he felt a chill creep up his back, and a lump of the size of his fist jump up into his throat. Here was a bad affair for him. He stood for a single point of time staring into the face of his despair, then, acting on the only plan he could think of to escape from the predicament, he said: "Wait a bit, Minny, I've got to go jist down here a piece to see a feller. I'll be back d'rectly. You stay right here and when I come back I'll trot you in." So speaking, as if in a great hurry, and sweating cold drops, with a ghastly smile flickering on his face, the young man slipped away into the crowd. Minny failed to notice his confusion, and so called after him cheerily: "Well, hurry, Jack, for I'm most dead to see the show!" What could Trout do? He spun round and round in that vast flood of people like a fish with but one eye. He rushed here, he darted there, and ever and anon, as a lost man returns upon his starting point, he came in sight of sweet Minny Hart patiently waiting for his return. Then he would spring back into the crowd like a deer leaping back into a thicket at sight of a hunter. Penniless at the fair, with Minny Hart waiting for him to take her into the show! Few persons can realize how keenly he now felt the loss of his money. He ought, no doubt, to have told the lass at once just how financial matters stood; but nothing was more remote from his mind than doing anything of the kind. He was too vain. "Tell 'er I 'ain't got no money! No, sir-ee!" he muttered. "But what _am_ I to do? Bust the luck! Hang the luck! Rot the luck!" He hurried hither and thither, intent on nothing and taking no heed of the course he pursued. His cheeks were livid and his eyes had in them that painful, worried, wistful look so often seen in the eyes of men going home from ruin on Wall street.