The officer had a similar word with the Conductor, and led the two prisoners out into the corridor. While they were waiting for their property to be taken from the boxes in which it had been stored, Eli Cook felt idly in his pocket and drew out a torn scrap of red paper marked with Chinese writing. “That’s all they left on me when I was searched,” he said, with a feeble grin. “Want it for a souvenir of a happy evenin’? It dropped out of a Chinaman’s pocket yesterday up to Dupont Street, and I picked it up.” The Freshman took it, in the same spirit of mockery, and stuffed it into his own pocket to keep company with several pawn tickets. As they went together into the street the city bells were striking two o’clock. “Gosh!” Coffin cried, with a burst of his old fervor, “I feel like the chairman of a woman’s club after an annual election. Where you going to feed your visage, old man?” he added tentatively. He was out of funds, hungry and weary. The hundred dollars won from the Klondyker in the smoking wager, deposited for bail, had, in fact, completely exhausted his resources. The Conductor, however, refused to take the hint, and manifested a desire to get away. “Oh, I got to snoop back to the Beach,” he said. “This has been a hard day for me, and I dunno how I’m a-goin’ to get even on my hundred if I have to stand trial. I ain’t exactly hungry, anyway, but perhaps I’ll stew up some canned stuff out to the cars. Want to come along? You’ll have to walk, though, and it’s full seven miles through the Park.” “No, thanks,” said Coffin, dryly. “I’ve got a poke-out coming to me at nine, and I guess I can wait. I’ll walk up and down, and let the girls admire me for a season.” “Well, good-by, then!” said Eli Cook of Carville-by-the-Sea, and he hurriedly made off down Kearney Street. The youngster mused. “I shall now endeavor to give the correct imitation of a thousand-dollar sport in the act of starving to death. I am wondering, in my simple Japanese way, whether that gentle Klondyker with my prize money in tow, will ever swim into my ken again. It’s a good deal like trying to find a pet oyster in a mud flat, but I’ll try my best. Angels, they say, can do no more. Selah!” With that he walked up to Gunschke’s cigar store and found the young man who had assisted at the smoking orgy of the night before. The clerk, however, knew nothing of the Klondyker’s whereabouts, having never seen the Father of the Katakoolanat previous to the debauch. The Freshman was in a quandary. “Say, has your luck changed yet?” the salesman asked. “Last time I heard, the curve was still rising.”