"I," said Mike, "have always felt for you as for a dear and only son."
"Gwan," said James imperiously. "Where did you get the glad rags?"
The Watermelon told them briefly how from a nameless hobo a few short hours before, he had become a famous young financier, hobnobbing with generals and millionaires. He chuckled as he told it with the half-cynical amusement of the philosopher for the follies of the poor, seething, hurrying, struggling crowd of humanity, too busy in their rush for gold and social position to see their own laughable pitiful shams and affectations. Poverty clears the eyesight as nothing else can, and the Watermelon had been poor so long and was so indifferent to his position that he had lost none of his clearness of vision in the strenuous endeavor of the others, and he saw, unconsciously, but nevertheless keenly, the dead level of human nature, with its artificial hills of gold and social position.
"Me father, I believe, is a policeman," said he. "Me mother a wash-woman. If I had a grandfather, no one knows. I'm fortunate to have a father and no questions asked, yet just because I can write me check, as they think, for a million and have it honored, I'm 'my boy' to the elite of the land, the 'best people.' Gosh, it's enough to make an ass bray."
"It is that," said Mike. "For me, only the intrinsic worth of the soul. Maybe there was a bit of change in the pockets?" he added as an afterthought.
"Yes, there was quite a bit. He's fresh at the game and carries a roll to show off with," returned the Watermelon, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. Mike edged a bit nearer. "See here, I want you fellers to do something for me."
"For you," said Mike, "I would give me immortal soul."
"I want something more than that, Mike," said the Watermelon.
"Me plug of baccy?" asked Mike with feeling.
The Watermelon shook his head as he slowly pulled a greenback from the bunch he held. "I want you two to go to that lake, get my clothes out of the log and give 'em to the poor devil."