"'That's unfortunate,' he remarked, looking out where the window ought to be. 'Very unfortunate. I might lend you a couple of hundred myself,' he added. 'I will, too!' "The blood jumped right up in my throat.' "'God bless you!' said I, 'you're a true friend!' "He laid his hand on my shoulder. "'You're in hard luck, old man, but you're going to win out. I'll stand by you. Here's a five. I'll go out and get the rest right off.' "Then all of a sudden I began to feel like a king. I could see myself in a new suit, having a bottle up at the Haymarket. I realized that I was a twenty-thousand-dollar millionaire. And just to show my chest, I said: "'Why, you're an honest man and a true friend. You take my claim and go and collect it this afternoon,' says I. "'No,' he hesitated, 'it's too much responsibility. I'll trust you for the money and you can pay me afterward.' "But with that, ass that I was, I fell to begging him to take the claim, and saying he must take it, just to show he believed I trusted him; and so after a while he reluctantly yielded and filled out a paper, and I signed it and got in the warden as a witness, and he rose to go. "'Well, till this afternoon,' says he. "'_Au revoir_,' I laughed, 'get yourself a bottle of wine for me,' says I. And off he goes. "As I passed back to the cells, who should I see beside the door but my old lawyer. "I shook my fist in his face. "'You old robber,' I says, 'we'll see if I can't get along without you!' "He sneered in my face. "'Oh, you ---- fool!' says he, 'you poor, poor, ----, ---- fool!' "Then he was gone. So I went back to the cell, and sang and whistled and figured on where I should take my little Flossie for dinner. I waited and waited. Six o'clock, and no word. Then I began to get nervous. "'You poor, poor, ----, ---- fool!' "The words rang around in my cell. Then something sort of gave inside. I knew I'd been robbed, and I yelled and shook the bars of the door and tried to get out. I cried for Flossie. The keepers came and told me to keep still; but I was plump crazy, and kept on yelling until everything got black and I fainted." "And your lawyer never came back?" "He never came back!" Riggs exclaimed. "He never came back! I've been robbed! I'm a poor ---- fool, just as Todd said I was." Riggs burst into maudlin tears. I gave him what consolation I could, and promised thoroughly to investigate his story. The keeper and Riggs arose in unison, the same urbane smile that had previously illuminated the countenance of the latter restored. "You couldn't manage to let me have a handful of cigars, could you?" he whispered. I gave him all I had. His cheek was irresistible. I would have given him my watch had he intimated a desire for it. Then I called up the Custom-house.