When Legs had pawned and lost about all he possessed, he happened upon a job at one of the hotels, and went to work. To do so, however, he had to secure a white jacket, and a pair of black trousers. This was somewhat difficult on account of his long legs, but he managed to secure an old pair, and, too glad of the chance to work where he could fill his stomach regularly, he gave good service, and was soon on the good side of the head waiter. "Say, Books," he cried one day, soon after he had commenced work. "You should have seen me eat today. Nice hot bisquits with butter, and dripping out around the edges, um-um. Man, the way I did eat! I got all them nigga's t' laffin' over somethin' funny I said, and then I'd slip back into the kitchen, open the oven and get me a half dozen hot rolls and butter'm good, and eat, and eat, and eat! "There is but one thing I can't seem to get over, and that is that dollar this nigga Moore got me out of bed to lose. Say, that hurt me worse than anything in this world. I've drawn the line on him now though. He ain't nothing but an old always broke coon, a-moochin' around for somebody to stake him in a game. I could have made it all right when I came over here, if it hadn't been for him. And he never won anything, and kept me broke as long as I would speak to him." In a very short time Legs was "on his feet," as the saying goes. He was making some money and spending it all. His good resolution with regard to gambling had been laid on the shelf until further declarations, and he shot craps whenever off duty, and when he could find a game. Moore he ignored; but that worthy was as fond of the game as a pig was of corn, so they occasionally ran into each other, nevertheless. In fact, as Sidney observed them, almost every Negro shot craps, with few exceptions. Whiskey and craps were so much in evidence everywhere he looked, that he drew this conclusion soon. Now a man lived overhead, and rented from the landlady, whose name was Murphy. Wyeth called him "Smoked Irish." He was a creature with a dark record, so Wyeth was told, and he hailed from a little town in the state adjoining. Some years before, he had been a man of considerable importance, but with women and other pastimes, he had fallen into bad ways, was sent to the penitentiary for fraud, and had sought other parts after the expiration of his term. As Wyeth knew him, he was a "bahba," and shaved chins and sheared wool in one of Effingham's fancy Negro shops. Murphy had seen almost fifty summers, was about five feet eleven, and a mulatto with coarse, stiff, black hair, tinged with gray. His features were set, like a man with experience, and he could tell some wonderful stories. The Mis' called them lies. They might have been, but it is to Murphy's credit that they were good ones, and interesting to listen to.