He says:
"I jes' this minute remembers 'at I got to ketch the 'leven-forty-two fur Hartford, Connecticut, whar I is gittin' ready to open up a branch 'stablishment—tha's whyfore. I been enjoyin' talkin' wid somebody frum my own dear state so much 'at I lets the time slip by unbeknownst an' now I jes' about kin git abo'de the train at the up-town station ef I hurries." He scratches his head. "Lemme see," he says, "whut-all is we goin' do 'bout 'at now?" Then it seems like he scratches an idea loose. "I got it," he says. "Mainly on 'count of my bein' in sech a rush, an' you bein' frum my home-town, I'm goin' mek you a heap sweeter proposition 'en de one w'ich I already has made. I'm goin' halfen this yere reward wid you; 'at's whut I'm goin' do. Yere's the plan: You jes' hands me over twenty-five dollars now fur my sheer an' 'en you keeps the ontire fifty w'ich he'll pay you. See? I knows I is a fool to be doin' it, but gittin' to Hartford on time today 'll mean a heap mo' to me in the long run 'en whut de diff'unce in the money would. How 'bout it, ole boy?"
I says to him that it listens all right to me, and I'd give him the twenty-five in a minute, only I ain't got it with me. When I says that his face falls so far his under-jaw mighty near grazes the ground, and then he says:
"Well, how much is you got? Is you got twenty—or even fifteen?"
I says I ain't got nothing on me in the way of ready cash, only carfare. But I says I is got something on me that's worth a heap more than twenty-five dollars.
And he says:
I says:
"It's this yere solid gold watch," I says. And I hauls it out and waves it before his eyes. "It's wuth fully forty dollars," I says, "but I ain't needin' it on 'count of havin' a still mo' handsomer one in my trunk, w'ich it wuz give to me by a committee of the w'ite folks two yeahs ago fur savin' a lil' w'ite boy from drowndin' off the upper wharf-boat. You tek the watch an' give me, say ten dollars boot," I says, "an' I'll collect the reward an' thar'by both of us 'll be mekin' money," I says; "'cause you kin sell the watch anywhars fur not lessen forty dollars. I done been offered 'at fur it befo' now."
He studies a minute and then he says that whilst he ain't doubting my word about the watch being worth that much money, still, business is business, and before he consents we'll have to take it to a jewelry-store half-a-square down the street and have it valued.