“I say,” he said, “I ’ve got a friend with me to-night.  He ’s got some dough on him.  He ’s fresh and young and easy.”

“Whew!” exclaimed the proprietor.

“Yes, he ‘s a good thing, but push it along kin’ o’ light at first; he might get skittish.”

“Thomas, let me fall on your bosom and weep,” said a young man who, on account of his usual expression of innocent gloom, was called Sadness.  “This is what I ’ve been looking for for a month.  My hat was getting decidedly shabby.  Do you think he would stand for a touch on the first night of our acquaintance?”

“Don’t you dare?  Do you want to frighten him off?  Make him believe that you ’ve got coin to burn and that it ’s an honour to be with you.”

“But, you know, he may expect a glimpse of the gold.”

“A smart man don’t need to show nothin’.  All he ’s got to do is to act.”

“Oh, I ’ll act; we ’ll all act.”

“Be slow to take a drink from him.”

“Thomas, my boy, you ’re an angel.  I recognise that more and more every day, but bid me do anything else but that.  That I refuse:  it ’s against nature;” and Sadness looked more mournful than ever.

“Trust old Sadness to do his part,” said the portly proprietor; and Thomas went back to the lamb.

“Nothin’ doin’ so early,” he said; “let ‘s go an’ have a drink.”

They went, and Thomas ordered.

“No, no, this is on me,” cried Joe, trembling with joy.

“Pshaw, your money ’s counterfeit,” said his companion with fine generosity.  “This is on me, I say.  Jack, what ’ll you have yourself?”

As they stood at the bar, the men began strolling up one by one.  Each in his turn was introduced to Joe.  They were very polite.  They treated him with a pale, dignified, high-minded respect that menaced his pocket-book and possessions.  The proprietor, Mr. Turner, asked him why he had never been in before.  He really seemed much hurt about it, and on being told that Joe had only been in the city for a couple of weeks expressed emphatic surprise, even disbelief, and assured the rest that any one would have taken Mr. Hamilton for an old New Yorker.

Sadness was introduced last.  He bowed to Joe’s “Happy to know you, Mr. Williams.”

“Better known as Sadness,” he said, with an expression of deep gloom.  “A distant relative of mine once had a great grief.  I have never recovered from it.”

Joe was not quite sure how to take this; but the others laughed and he joined them, and then, to cover his own embarrassment, he did what he thought the only correct and manly thing to do,—­he ordered a drink.

“I don’t know as I ought to,” said Sadness.

“Oh, come on,” his companions called out, “don’t be stiff with a stranger.  Make him feel at home.”

“Mr. Hamilton will believe me when I say that I have no intention of being stiff, but duty is duty.  I ’ve got to go down town to pay a bill, and if I get too much aboard, it would n’t be safe walking around with money on me.”