myself, "to solve a skin game."

The next day I happened to pass the place again and they were
selling the same watch. I listened for the second time to the sad
story of Joe the brakeman. He was still in the hospital and still
willing to sacrifice his eighty-five-dollar gold watch to the
highest bidder. Just for fun I started off the bidding at two
dollars. The auctioneer at once knocked down the watch to me and
took my money. The speed of it dazed me, and I stumbled along the
street like a fool. What was the game? I held the glittering
watch in my hand and gazed at it like a hypnotized bird. I came
to another pawnshop and went in. "What will you give me on this
watch?" I asked. The pawnbroker glanced at it and said he
couldn't give me anything but advice.

"I can buy these watches for three dollars a dozen. They are
made to be sold at auction. The case is not gold and the works
won't run."

I had been caught in the game after all. The whole show had
been put on for me. The men who did the bidding the first day
were "with the show." Their scheme was to get a real bid from me.
When I failed to bite, they rung down the curtain and waited for
the next come-on. The show was staged again for me the following
day, and that time they got me. I had the "brakeman's watch" and
he had the laugh on me. In the next wreck that Brakeman Joe got
into I wished him the same luck Comrade Bannerman wished for the
trainload of plutocrats. "If I should meet Joe now," I said, "I'd
gladly give him back the timepiece that he prizes so." Let us
hope that the brakeman I gave the watch to down in Alabama was