"It was about a little girl you saved from drowning and a purse made up
and given you. Why did you take the money?"
Sam looked at her squarely. The story was one that Jack Prince had delight
in telling. It concerned an incident of his early business life in the
city.
One afternoon, when he was still in the employ of the commission firm, he
had taken a party of men for a trip on an excursion steamer on the lake.
He had a project into which he wanted them to go with him and had taken
them aboard the steamer to get them together and present the merits of his
scheme. During the trip a little girl had fallen overboard and Sam,
springing after her, had brought her safely aboard the boat.
On the excursion steamer a cheer had arisen. A young man in a broad-
brimmed cowboy hat ran about taking up a collection. People crowded
forward to grasp Sam's hand and he had accepted the money collected and
had put it in his pocket.
Among the men aboard the boat were several who, while they did not draw
back from going into Sam's project, had thought his taking the money not
manly. They had told the story, and it had come to the ears of Jack
Prince, who never tired of repeating it and always ended the story with
the request that the listener ask Sam why he had taken the money.
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