Jeams, who had followed me from college, at times hung around my office, carried Miss Poole my notes and flowers and, in the hour of my prosperity, blossomed out in a gorgeousness of apparel that partly accounted for my heavy expense account, as well as for the rapid disappearance of the little private stock I occasionally kept or tried to keep in a deceptive-looking desk which I used as a sideboard for myself and friends. He usually wore an old suit of mine, in which he looked surprisingly well, but on occasions he wore a long-tailed coat, a red necktie and a large soft, light hat which, cocked on the side of his head, gave him the air of an Indian potentate. I think he considered himself in some sort a partner. He always referred to me and my business as "us" and "our" business, and, on some one's asking him derisively if he were a partner of mine, he replied, "Oh, no, sir, only what you might term a minor connectee of the Captain." He was, however, a very useful fellow, being ready to do anything in the world I ordered, except when he was tight or had some piece of rascality on foot--occasions by no means rare. He wore, at election time, a large and flaming badge announcing that he was something in his party--the opposite party to mine; but I have reason to believe that when I was in politics he perjured himself freely and committed other crimes against the purity of the ballot on which economists declare all Representative Government is founded. One of my ardent friends once informed me that he thought I ought not to allow Jeams to wear that badge--it was insulting me openly. I told him that he was a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would insist on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to compromise. In fact, I had gotten rather dependent on him. Then he and I held such identical views as to Peck, not to mention some other mutual acquaintances, and Jeams could show his contempt in such delightfully insolent ways. I had intimated to Jeams some time before, immediately after my first serious reverse in the stock market, that I was no longer as flush as I had been, and that unless affairs looked up I might move on to fresh pastures--or, possibly, I put it, to a wider field for the exercise of my powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his intention to accompany me and share my fortune. But I must say, he showed plainly his belief that it was a richer pasture which I was contemplating moving into, and he viewed the prospect with a satisfaction much like that of a cat which, in the act of lapping milk, has cream set before it. The only thing that puzzled him was that he could not understand why I wanted more than I had. He said so plainly. "What you want to go 'way for, Cap'n? Whyn't you stay where you is? You done beat 'em all--evy one of 'em----" "Oh! no, I haven't."