When at last we stood facing each other, however, I found myself at a loss. He was a mere boy, with a wizened, old-young face and cunning eyes that took me in from hatless head to socked feet with a callous insolence that rather appealed to me. What _was_ I going to do about it? The police of San Francisco were either asleep or smoking cigarettes in more salubrious quarters of the city; and it was next to impossible to give him in charge, so I took the law into my own hands. “Hand over what you took,” said I, “and you shall go.” “The others went through him,” he replied, sullenly; “I don’t know how much they got.” “Shall we call it twenty-five dollars as a minimum?” I suggested. His face expressed neither approval nor dissent, but he drew from a ragged pocket a large gold watch. “Guess that’ll cover it,” he said, coolly, and on examination I found that it did, by fully another twenty-five dollars. When, after considerable difficulty, I found my way back to the tobacconist, my companion had recovered consciousness and, with a bandaged head, sat up to hear my report. “How much did you lose?” was my first question. “Nothing,” he said; “I haven’t a cent in the world.” “Then here’s something to be going on with,” said I, and handed him the watch. After the foregoing, it is with some reluctance that I relate what happened two days later, but the experience is so typical of San Franciscan under-life that I can hardly allow it to pass unrecorded. My own part in the affair was entirely reprehensible, and I need say no more, for everyone knows that, while confession may be good for the soul, it is rarely compatible with personal dignity. I wished to go to a certain theatre, and asked the way of the first pedestrian I met. He smilingly informed me that I was going in precisely the opposite direction, and that, as he happened to be passing the doors himself, he would show me the way. During the next five minutes I learnt that my guide was also a stranger to San Francisco, and that he had come from Canada. As I had lived there myself for four years this supplied a connecting link in our reminiscences, and we entered the first bar to improve the occasion. He certainly knew the Canadian prairie like a book, and his anecdotes of ranch and bush life were so interesting that the theatre was soon forgotten and we settled down for a chat. [Illustration: “UNABLE TO STOP MYSELF, I FELL HEADLONG OVER HIS BODY.”] It appeared that he had tired of the rough life of the plains, and after a course of study had become a telegraph operator in Denver. While there he had been approached by a gang of wire-tappers[2] with a view to his becoming a confederate, but he had refused. A few weeks later he heard of their capture, and went to see the trial and conviction of the entire gang. [2] Those who intercept telegraph messages by establishing secret connections on branch wires, thus gaining news of races in advance of the general public.