“I was thinking about it,” replied the clerk. “You might try our chief engineer. He’s always trading watches when he thinks he can make any thing by it.” “I don’t want to sell the watch,” said Clarence. “I only want to borrow some money on it. I shall return to Rochdale at once, and by the time you come down again, I shall be ready to redeem it.” “I understand,” said the clerk. “The engineer is in his room now.” “Then let’s try him at once. Come with me, will you? You know him better than I do.” The clerk showed Clarence the way into the engineer’s room, where that officer, having just come off watch, was taking his usual forenoon nap. He greeted Clarence cordially--he had smoked more than one cigar at the boy’s expense during the down trip--and listened patiently to the story he had to tell. He examined the watch and said he would advance fifty dollars on it, provided the owner would be ready to redeem it the next time the Emma Deane stopped at Rochdale. This Clarence readily promised to do; so the money was paid at once, the officer pocketed the watch, and the boy went out feeling as if a mountain had been removed from his shoulders. He gave the clerk five dollars for his coat, paid his fare to Cairo, and still had left a sum of money sufficiently large to take him home, provided he did not spend too much for cigars and ale. Half an hour later he was sitting on the boiler deck with his chair tilted back, his feet on the railing, a cigar between his teeth, and looking as happy and contented as though he had never known a moment’s trouble in his life. “Things don’t look quite as dark as they did,” said he, throwing back his head and watching the smoke as it ascended from his cigar. “I didn’t lose anything by making friends of the officers of this boat on the down trip. Now that I am safely out of the scrape, I’d give something to know what is going on down there at the plantation. Forty thousand dollars? The last chance I shall ever have to make a fortune has slipped through my fingers; and all through Don’s interference. He deserved just what he got, and I hope it will teach him to mind his own business.”