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I began to understand the Man from Solano, and said it was. He returned his watch to his pocket, toyed playfully with the chain, and remarked, “Kinder makes a man look fash’nable and wealthy, don’t it?”

I agreed with him. “But what do you intend to do here?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve got a cash capital of nigh on seven hundred dollars. I guess until I get into reg’lar business I’ll skirmish round Wall Street, and sorter lay low.” I was about to give him a few words of warning, but I remembered his watch, and desisted. We shook hands and parted.

A few days after I met him on Broadway. He was attired in another new suit, but I think I saw a slight improvement in his general appearance. Only five distinct colors were visible in his attire. But this, I had reason to believe afterwards, was accidental.

I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said he had. “That gal, and a mighty peart gal she was too, was there, but she sorter fought shy of me. I got this new suit to go in, but those waiters sorter run me into a private box, and I didn’t get much chance to continner our talk about them checks. But that young feller, Dashboard, was mighty perlite. He brought lots of fellers and young women round to the box to see me, and he made up a party that night to take me round Wall Street and in them Stock Boards. And the next day he called for me and took me, and I invested about five hundred dollars in them stocks–may be more. You see, we sorter swopped stocks. You know I had ten shares in the Peacock Copper Mine, that you was once secretary of.”

“But those shares are not worth a cent. The whole thing exploded ten years ago.”

“That’s so, may be; YOU say so. But then I didn’t know anything more about Communipaw Central, or the Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so I thought it was a square game. Only I realized on the stocks I bought, and I kem up outer Wall Street about four hundred dollars better. You see it was a sorter risk, after all, for them Peacock stocks MIGHT come up!”

I looked into his face: it was immeasurably serene and commonplace. I began to be a little afraid of the man, or, rather, of my want of judgment of the man; and after a few words we shook hands and parted.

It was some months before I again saw the Man from Solano. When I did, I found that he had actually become a member of the Stock Board, and had a little office on Broad Street, where he transacted a fair business. My remembrance going back to the first night I met him, I inquired if he had renewed his acquaintance with Miss X. “I heerd that she was in Newport this summer, and I ran down there fur a week.”

“And you talked with her about the baggage-checks?”

“No,” he said, seriously; “she gave me a commission to buy some stocks for her. You see, I guess them fash’nable fellers sorter got to runnin’ her about me, and so she put our acquaintance on a square business footing. I tell you, she’s a right peart gal. Did ye hear of the accident that happened to her?”

I had not.

“Well, you see, she was out yachting, and I managed through one of those fellers to get an invite, too. The whole thing was got up by a man that they say is going to marry her. Well, one afternoon the boom swings round in a little squall and knocks her overboard. There was an awful excitement,–you’ve heard about it, may be?”

“No!” But I saw it all with a romancer’s instinct in a flash of poetry! This poor fellow, debarred through uncouthness from expressing his affection for her, had at last found his fitting opportunity. He had–