Soon the sun fell, and the people straggled toward their respective boarding-houses, and Mr. Putchett, to fight off loneliness as long as possible, rose from the bench on which he had been sitting and followed the party up the beach.

He had supposed himself the last person that left the beach, but in a moment or two he heard a childish voice shouting: 

“Mister, mister!  I guess you’ve lost something!”

Mr. Putchett turned quickly, and saw a little girl, six or seven years of age, running toward him.  In one hand she held a small pail and wooden shovel, and in the other something bright, which was too large for her little hand to cover.

She reached the broker’s side, turned up a bright, healthy face, opened her hand and displayed a watch, and said: 

“It was right there on the bench where you were sitting.  I couldn’t think what it was, it shone so.”

Mr. Putchett at first looked suspiciously at the child, for he had at one period of his life labored industriously in the business of dropping bogus pocketbooks and watches, and obtaining rewards from persons claiming to be their owners.

[Illustration:  MR. PUTCHETT’S NEW FRIEND.]

Examining the watch which the child handed him, however, he recognized it as one upon which he had lent twenty dollars earlier in the day.

First prudently replacing the watch in the pocket of his pantaloons, so as to avoid any complication while settling with the finder, he handed the child a quarter.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said she, hastily; “mamma gives me money whenever I need it.”

The experienced operator immediately placed the fractional currency where it might not tempt the child to change her mind.  Then he studied her face with considerable curiosity, and asked: 

“Do you live here?”

“Oh, no,” she replied; “we’re only spending the Summer here.  We live in New York.”

Mr. Putchett opened his eyes, whistled, and remarked: 

“It’s very funny.”

“Why, I don’t think so,” said the child, very innocently.  “Lots of people that board here come from New York.  Don’t you want to see my well?  I dug the deepest well of anybody to-day.  Just come and see—­it’s only a few steps from here.”

Mechanically, as one straggling with a problem above his comprehension, the financier followed the child, and gazed into a hole, perhaps a foot and a half deep, on the beach.

“That’s my well,” said she, “and that one next it is Frank’s.  Nellie’s is way up there.  I guess hers would have been the biggest, but a wave came up and spoiled it.”

Mr. Putchett looked from the well into the face of its little digger, and was suddenly conscious of an insane desire to drink some of the water.  He took the child’s pail, dipped some water, and was carrying it to his lips, when the child spoiled what was probably the first sentimental feeling of Mr. Putchett’s life by hastily exclaiming: