something from my vest pocket and said:

"This is all I've got left."

The trainman examined it by the dim light at the window. His
eye told him that it was a fine gold watch. "All right," he said
as be pocketed it and went away. I never knew whether I cheated
the brakeman or the brakeman cheated me. The watch wasn't worth
as much as the ride, but the ride wasn't his to sell.

I had bought the watch in Cincinnati. A fake auction in a
pawnshop attracted my attention as I walked along a street near
the depot. The auctioneer was offering a "solid gold, Swiss
movement, eighteen jeweled watch" to the highest bidder. "This
watch belongs to my friend Joe Coupling," he said, "a brakeman on
the B. & O. He was in a wreck and is now in the hospital.
Everybody knows that one of the best things a railroader has is
his watch. He only parts with it as a matter of life and death.
Joe has got to sell his watch and somebody is going to get a
bargain. This watch cost eighty-five dollars and you couldn't buy
the like of it to-day for one hundred. How much am I offered?"
Some one bid five dollars, and the bidding continued until it was
up to twenty-five dollars. At that price the watch was declared
sold, and I strolled on, thinking the matter over. I figured that
the story of Joe the injured brakeman must be false. If he had an
eighty-five-dollar watch he could borrow forty on it. Why should
his "friend" have sold it outright for twenty-five? The fakery of
it was plain to any one who stopped to think. Who then would be
fool enough to pay twenty-five dollars for a fake watch at a side
auction? Not I. I was too wise. "How easy it is," I said to