"YOU think so," he said querulously, apparently ignoring everything but the practical fact,--"and maybe others do; but that's where you're mistaken. It don't pay. It may pay HIM to be runnin' me as his particular friend, to be quotin' me here and there, to be gettin' credit of knowin' me and my friends and ownin' me--by Gosh! but I don't see where the benefit to ME comes in. Eh? Take your own case down there at Eureka Gulch; didn't he send for me just to show me up to you fellers? Did I want to have anything to do with the Eureka Company? Didn't he set me up to give my opinion about that shaft just to show off what I knew about science and all that? And what did he get me to join the company for? Was it for you? No! Was it for me? No! It was just to keep me there for HIMSELF, and kinder pit me agin you fellers and crow over you! Now that ain't my style! It may be HIS--it may be honest and simple and loyal, as you say, and it may be all right for him to get me to run up accounts at the settlement and then throw off on me--but it ain't my style. I suppose he let on that I did that. No? He didn't? Well then, why did he want to run me off with him, and out the whole concern in an underhand way and make me leave with nary a character behind me, eh? Now, I never said anything about this before--did I? It ain't like me. I wouldn't have said anything about it now, only you talked about MY being benefited by his darned foolishness. Much I've made outer HIM." Despicable, false, and disloyal as this was, perhaps it was the crowning meanness of such confidences that his very weakness seemed only a reflection of Captain Jim's own, and appeared in some strange way to degrade his friend as much as himself. The simplicity of his vanity and selfishness was only equalled by the simplicity of Captain Jim's admiration of it. It was a part of my youthful inexperience of humanity that I was not above the common fallacy of believing that a man is "known by the company he keeps," and that he is in a manner responsible for its weakness; it was a part of that humanity that I felt no surprise in being more amused than shocked by this revelation. It seemed a good joke on Captain Jim! "Of course YOU kin laugh at his darned foolishness; but, by Gosh, it ain't a laughing matter to me!" "But surely he's given you a good position on the 'Guardian,'" I urged. "That was disinterested, certainly." "Was it? I call that the cheekiest thing yet. When he found he couldn't make enough of me in private life, he totes me out in public as HIS editor--the man who runs HIS paper! And has his name in print as the proprietor, the only chance he'd ever get of being before the public. And don't know the whole town is laughing at him!" "That may be because they think HE writes some of the articles," I suggested.