At that price the watch was declared sold, and I strolled on, thinking the matter over.

I figured that the story of Joe the injured brakeman must be false.

If he had an eighty-five-dollar watch he could borrow forty on it.

Why should his "friend" have sold it outright for twenty-five?
The fakery of it was plain to any one who stopped to think.
Who then would be fool enough to pay twenty-five dollars for a fake watch at a side auction?
Not I.I was too wise.

"How easy it is," I said to myself, "to solve a skin game." The next day I happened to pass the place again and they were selling the same watch.