"Awful nice little shaver," said another.
"I once had a mighty touchin' story happen to me, myself," said Keno, solemnly.
"What was it?" inquired a sympathetic miner.
"Couldn't bear to tell it—not this mornin'," said Keno. "Too touchin'."
"Good-bye fer just at present, little Skeezucks," said Field, and, suddenly divesting himself of his brazen watch and chain, he offered it up as a gift, with spontaneous generosity. "Want it, Skeezucks?" said he. "Don't you want to hear it go?"
The little man would relax neither his clutch on Jim's collar nor his hold of his doll, wherefore he had no hand with which to accept the present.
"Do you think he runs a pawn-shop, Field?" said the teamster. "Put it back."
The men all guffawed in their raucous way.
"Keeps mighty good time, all the same," said Field, and he re-swung the chain, like a hammock, from the parted wings of his vest, and dropped the huskily ticking guardian of the minutes back to its place in his pocket.
"Watches that don't keep perfect time," drawled Jim, "are scarcer than wimmin who tell their age on the square."