“After that he was like a mother to me all the way. Other compartments were filled up, but I had mine to myself always. Every time I passed him I gave him a wink and tapped my watch-pocket, and he switched on the nicest smile he kept in stock. “Gee whiz, though, comin’ across Siberia the inside of that train was hotter’n the gates of Hades, and every day that feller would come to my room two or three times to see if he couldn’t do something to make me more comfortable. “At Irkutsk I handed over the watch, and either his joy at receivin’ it or his sorrow at partin’ with me was so great that he tried to kiss me. “Irkutsk is where they change trains, and I met an Englishman on the platform who lived in Port Arthur; he was goin’ back there by way of Dalny. He had been on a holiday to England, and was comin’ back on third-class trains, as he had spent about all his money, and had only just enough to skin through third-class. When I found he knew the country and could talk Russian, I invited him to come along with me; I told him I’d fix things up all right. “Well, by and by the conductor comes along, same as the other had done. There we were, both in a first-class compartment, one with a second and the other with a third-class ticket. I didn’t have need to do any dumb show this time, for my friend, who spoke the lingo, did all the gassin’, and told him there was a nice present waitin’ for him when Dalny was reached if we could stay where we were, and when I tenderly took another watch out of my pocket and looked at it as though it was the only thing I’d ever loved on earth, he was as much overcome with joy as number one had been. “Well, that watch fixed it just as I knew it would. We both stayed where we were, and when, at Dalny, I handed it over to the conductor, I calculated those two watches, worth two dollars and forty cents, had saved me about one hundred and twenty-five dollars. “That Englishman was as chock-full of knowledge about Manchuria as an egg is full of meat, and I got enough information out of him to write up the whole trip across Russia and Siberia. “Now you see the point I’m gettin’ at. There’s more of them watches in my bag, besides this one on my chain, and I’d like to see the captain of this ship richer by one of ’em, provided he does somethin’ to earn such a valuable present as he’ll consider it, until he gets to pryin’ into the works and askin’ experts’ opinions about it; but by that time I’ll be a long way off and it ’ain’t likely as I’ll ever see him again. There’s one disadvantage about this game that’s worth remarkin’--you can’t play it on the same man twice.