The green-eyed stranger, who had evidently money to spend foolishly, and a night to waste in doing it, assented jovially. It is not hard to organize an impromptu trio for any hair-brained purpose whatever in that land of careless comradeship. The two waited till the clerk had put up the screen at the front of the shop, and then walked with him round to California Street. Half way up the first block stood an old-fashioned wooden house painted drab, with green blinds, in striking contrast to the high brick buildings that surrounded it. The frame had been brought round Cape Horn in ’49, and, in pioneer days, the place had been one of the most fashionable boarding-houses in town. Chinatown now crowded it in; it had fallen into disrepute, and was visited only by the poorer class of foreigners. Over the entrance was a sign bearing the inscription, “Hotel de France.” Here the salesman had a room. The lower part of the house was dark, but in answer to a prolonged ringing of the bell, a small boy appeared and, with many comments in a _patois_ of the Bas Pyrenees, lighted two lamps in the barroom. The three men sat down and took off their coats and collars for comfort. James Wiswell Coffin, 3d, opened the box of Panatelas and regarded them with a sentimental eye. He bit the end off the first cigar and struck a match. Then he bowed to the company with the theatrical air of a man about to touch off a loaded bomb. “Gentlemen, I proceed to take my degree of Bachelor of Nicotine, if I don’t flunk.” He lighted the tobacco, quoting, “_Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutant!_” and blew forth a ring of smoke. It floated upward, smooth and even, hovered over his head a moment like a halo, then, writhing, scattered and drifted away. Coffin removed the cigar from his mouth and looked thoughtfully at the ash. “It burns all right,” he said, “I won’t have to put kerosene on ’em to make ’em go. D’you know a Panatela always reminds me of a smart, tailor-made girl. It’s the most slenderly beautiful shape for a cigar; it’s gracile, by Jove, gracile and jimpriculate—I got that word in Kentucky. But I chatter, friends, I am garrulous. Besides I think I have now said all I know, and it’s your edge, stranger. How would it do for you to enliven the pink and frisky watches of the night by narrating a few of the more inflammable chapters of your autobiography?” Thus conjured by the imp, the stranger consented to relate, after a few preliminaries, the following tale: THE STORY OF THE RETURNED KLONDYKER This is pretty near the finish, young fellow, of the biggest spending jag this town ever saw. The money cost me sixteen years of tramping and trading and frozen toes, and then it came slap, all in a bunch. So easy come, easy go, says I.