“He didn’t hear me, he was so occupied looking at his old home, till a big fellow in his shirt-sleeves comes out and begins looking at the contents of the shop window to see how they showed.
“‘Then will you give Mrs. Broke, I mean Burstall, this parcel,’ says Billy, ‘and ask her to see me about it, there’s been a big mistake.’
“‘No use troubling her,’ says the big chap. ‘I’m Burstall and running this store. What’s this you’ve brought back—we don’t change no goods once bought.’
“‘Well, what’s wrong with it?’ asks the other, taking the goods.
“‘What’s wrong with it!’ cries Billy, then he begins to laugh like a crazy man, till I thought Burstall would have gone for the both of us.
“‘Come on, Billy,’ I says, catching him by the arm, then I turns to Burstall: ‘You big stiff,’ I says, for all my bristles were up at the beefy look of the chap and the carried on. ‘You big stiff,’ I says, ‘for two pins,’ I says, ‘I’d kick you from here to Santa Barbara.’
“Burstall drops the parcel to go for me, when along comes a policeman, and explanations begins; Burstall saying how we’d been trying to land him some old goods we’d never bought in his shop and the policeman asking us for our address.
“‘We don’t belong here,’ I says. ‘We’ve come from ’Frisco.’
“‘Well,’ says the bull, ‘if I find you about town trying any more of your dodges by noon to-day. I’ll run you in, sure as my name’s Bill Adams. Pick up your parcel and off with you.’
“I picked the damned thing up and stuffed it in the side pocket of Billy’s coat and led him off, the bull following us two or three blocks to make sure we were moving.
“We found a train was starting at the station, and I got Billy in, all broke down. Getting towards ’Frisco he pulled himself together, he’d been thinking a lot on the journey, and I got the surprise of my life to find him cheerful all of a sudden.
“‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ says he. ‘I’m thinking this thing is my mascot, and I’ve been trying to get rid of my luck all this time. It got me free of that woman, for we never pulled together proper, it got me in with you and Slane, and you’ve made a man of me. Every time I tried to lose it, bad luck came to me, and look at the luck she’s had since she lost it, married to that brute of a Burstall. It’s my luck I’ve been trying to get rid of, and now I know, I’m going to do big things.’