“'For charity's sake, give me a match!' I cried.
“He looked at me—'sized me up,' in the technical terminology of his trade. Intelligence began to illumine his countenance. He saw that the opportunity of his life had come. He held out a match.
“'I'll sell it to you for fifty cents,' he said, with a grin.
“I had erred in revealing the depth of my want, the extent of my distress.
“I compromised by promising to give him a half-dollar if I should succeed in lighting my cigar with his solitary match. We did succeed. He took the fifty and started back for the saloon from whence he had come.
“Oh, my boy, the irony of fate—that same old oft-quoted irony!
“I hadn't blown three mouthfuls of smoke from that cigar when a friend came along with a lighted cigar, an umbrella, and a box full of matches.
“The whole effect of this story lies in the value that fifty cents possessed for me at that time. It was my last fifty cents, and two days stood between that night and salary day.
“I had another experience—”
But a night car came in view from around a corner, my friend ran for it, and his third tale remains untold.