“Perhaps I can accommodate you,” said the clerk. “Come up to my room, and after you have taken a wash and a brush you’ll look better.” Clarence accompanied the clerk to his room in Texas (that is the name given to the upper cabin in river steamers), and after he had bathed his hands and face, and given his clothes a thorough brushing he proceeded to make an estimate of the damages he had received. He decided that his trowsers, boots and vest would pass muster, and so would his shirt and collar, although they were both pretty badly rumpled; but the coat was torn beyond all repair, and was fit only for somebody’s rag-bag. The clerk thought so too, and took down from a nail in his room a coat which he said he didn’t need, and which Clarence might wear and welcome if he were only going on to Cincinnati; but as he was to stop off at Cairo, perhaps he had better buy it. Clarence thought now that he would have played his game a little sharper if he had said nothing about stopping at Cairo; but, in order to make the story he had yet to tell appear reasonable, he was obliged to hold to what he had already said. “Unfortunately I am not going to Cincinnati,” said he. “My business will take me no farther than Cairo. What’s the coat worth?” “Well, I don’t think five dollars would be too much; do you?” “O, no. I’ll willingly give you that.” Clarence laid down the coat, thrust his hand into his pocket, and then stopped and looked at the clerk, while a blank look settled on his face. After standing motionless for a moment, he began with frantic haste to empty all his pockets. This done he sank down on the clerk’s bed, his hands dropped by his side, and he looked dejected enough. “Is it gone?” asked the clerk, who readily understood this pantomime. “Yes, sir, it’s gone--my pocket-book with an even hundred dollars in it. Now, am I not in a nice fix? How am I going to pay my fare to Cairo and back?” “It must have dropped out of your pocket when your horse threw you,” said the clerk. “That’s just the way it happened, and every cent I had was in it, too.” Clarence looked up and saw that the clerk’s gaze was fastened on his watch that lay on the bed; and that same watch, which was a birth-day present from his mother, was the boy’s sole dependence now. When he was passing through the brier-patch, on his way to the cellar where his cousin was confined, the long chain, which dangled from his button-hole, was constantly catching on the bushes, and Clarence had unhooked it and put it into his pocket with the watch. Probably that was all that saved the time-piece, for had Godfrey Evans seen the chain, he might have taken that and the watch as well as the money. “Do you suppose there is any one on board who will advance me anything on that?” asked Clarence, brightening up as if the idea had just occurred to him.