I was well paid, however, even to sing.  Pinkerton and I, after an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide.  Nay, and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall.  This was at the end of the season, after the “Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala.”  Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the campaign re-opened.  Among my purchasers was a workingman of the name of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again on the wrong side, and playing the creditor to some one else’s debtor.  Speedy was in the belligerent stage of fear.  He could not pay.  It appeared he had already resold the hampers, and he defied me to do my worst.  I did not like to lose my own money; I hated to lose Pinkerton’s; and the bearing of my creditor incensed me.

“Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the penitentiary?” said I, willing to read him a lesson.

The dire expression was overheard in the next room.  A large, fresh, motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell to besiege me with caresses and appeals.  “Sure now, and ye couldn’t have the heart to ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that’s so well known to be a pleasant gentleman; and it’s a pleasant face ye have, and the picture of me own brother that’s dead and gone.  It’s a truth that he’s been drinking.  Ye can smell it off of him, more blame to him.  But, indade, and there’s nothing in the house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock.  It’s the stock that ye’ll be taking, dear.  A sore penny it has cost me, first and last, and by all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe.”  Thus adjured, and somewhat embarrassed by the stern attitude I had adopted, I suffered myself to be invested with a considerable quantity of what is called wild-cat stock, in which this excellent if illogical female had been squandering her hard-earned gold.  It could scarce be said to better my position, but the step quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I was taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were those of what I will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen some time before to the bed-rock quotation, and now lay perfectly inert, or were only kicked (like other waste paper) about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt speculators.

A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that Catamount had taken a bound; before afternoon, “thim stock” were worth a quite considerable pot of money; and I learned, upon inquiry, that a bonanza had been found in a condemned lead, and the mine was now expected to do wonders.  Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in condemned leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point immediately before!  By some stroke of chance the, Speedys had held on to the right thing; they had escaped the syndicate; yet a little more, if I had not come to dun them, and