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diff --git a/1805.txt b/1805.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f83640c --- /dev/null +++ b/1805.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5532 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Gentle Grafter, by O. Henry, Illustrated +by H. C. Greening and May Wilson Preston + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Gentle Grafter + The Octopus Marooned -- Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet -- Modern Rural Sports -- The Chair of Philanthromathematics -- The Hand That Riles the World -- The Exact Science of Matrimony -- A Midsummer Masquerade -- Shearing the Wolf -- Innocents of Broadway -- Conscience in Art -- The Man Higher Up -- A Tempered Wind -- Hostages to Momus -- The Ethics of Pig + + +Author: O. Henry + + + +Release Date: July 1, 1999 [eBook #1805] +[Most recently revised: December 18, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE GRAFTER*** + + +E-text prepared by John Bickers and Dagny and revised by Joseph E. +Loewenstein, M.D. + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 1805-h.htm or 1805-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/1805/1805-h/1805-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/1805/1805-h.zip) + + + + + +THE GENTLE GRAFTER + +by + +O. HENRY + +Illustrated by H. C. Greening and May Wilson Preston + +1919 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "They began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars." +(Frontispiece)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. The Octopus Marooned + II. Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet + III. Modern Rural Sports + IV. The Chair of Philanthromathematics + V. The Hand That Riles the World + VI. The Exact Science of Matrimony + VII. A Midsummer Masquerade +VIII. Shearing the Wolf + IX. Innocents of Broadway + X. Conscience in Art + XI. The Man Higher Up + XII. A Tempered Wind +XIII. Hostages to Momus + XIV. The Ethics of Pig + + + + + +THE OCTOPUS MAROONED + + +"A trust is its weakest point," said Jeff Peters. + +"That," said I, "sounds like one of those unintelligible remarks such +as, 'Why is a policeman?'" + +"It is not," said Jeff. "There are no relations between a trust and a +policeman. My remark was an epitogram--an axis--a kind of mulct'em in +parvo. What it means is that a trust is like an egg, and it is not +like an egg. If you want to break an egg you have to do it from the +outside. The only way to break up a trust is from the inside. Keep +sitting on it until it hatches. Look at the brood of young colleges +and libraries that's chirping and peeping all over the country. Yes, +sir, every trust bears in its own bosom the seeds of its destruction +like a rooster that crows near a Georgia colored Methodist camp +meeting, or a Republican announcing himself a candidate for governor +of Texas." + +I asked Jeff, jestingly, if he had ever, during his checkered, +plaided, mottled, pied and dappled career, conducted an enterprise of +the class to which the word "trust" had been applied. Somewhat to my +surprise he acknowledged the corner. + +"Once," said he. "And the state seal of New Jersey never bit into +a charter that opened up a solider and safer piece of legitimate +octopusing. We had everything in our favor--wind, water, police, +nerve, and a clean monopoly of an article indispensable to the public. +There wasn't a trust buster on the globe that could have found a weak +spot in our scheme. It made Rockefeller's little kerosene speculation +look like a bucket shop. But we lost out." + +"Some unforeseen opposition came up, I suppose," I said. + +"No, sir, it was just as I said. We were self-curbed. It was a case of +auto-suppression. There was a rift within the loot, as Albert Tennyson +says. + +"You remember I told you that me and Andy Tucker was partners for some +years. That man was the most talented conniver at stratagems I ever +saw. Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hands he took it as +a personal grudge, if he couldn't take it any other way. Andy was +educated, too, besides having a lot of useful information. He had +acquired a big amount of experience out of books, and could talk for +hours on any subject connected with ideas and discourse. He had been +in every line of graft from lecturing on Palestine with a lot of magic +lantern pictures of the annual Custom-made Clothiers' Association +convention at Atlantic City to flooding Connecticut with bogus wood +alcohol distilled from nutmegs. + +"One Spring me and Andy had been over in Mexico on a flying trip +during which a Philadelphia capitalist had paid us $2,500 for a half +interest in a silver mine in Chihuahua. Oh, yes, the mine was all +right. The other half interest must have been worth two or three +thousand. I often wondered who owned that mine. + +"In coming back to the United States me and Andy stubbed our toes +against a little town in Texas on the bank of the Rio Grande. The +name of it was Bird City; but it wasn't. The town had about 2,000 +inhabitants, mostly men. I figured out that their principal means of +existence was in living close to tall chaparral. Some of 'em were +stockmen and some gamblers and some horse peculators and plenty were +in the smuggling line. Me and Andy put up at a hotel that was built +like something between a roof-garden and a sectional bookcase. It +began to rain the day we got there. As the saying is, Juniper Aquarius +was sure turning on the water plugs on Mount Amphibious. + +"Now, there were three saloons in Bird City, though neither Andy +nor me drank. But we could see the townspeople making a triangular +procession from one to another all day and half the night. Everybody +seemed to know what to do with as much money as they had. + +"The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so +me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird +City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide arroyo that +used to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and +its old bed was cracking and giving away, when we saw it, on account +of the high water caused by the rain. Andy looks at it a long time. +That man's intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a +instantaneous idea that has occurred to him. Right there was organized +a trust; and we walked back into town and put it on the market. + +"First we went to the main saloon in Bird City, called the Blue Snake, +and bought it. It cost us $1,200. And then we dropped in, casual, at +Mexican Joe's place, referred to the rain, and bought him out for +$500. The other one came easy at $400. + +"The next morning Bird City woke up and found itself an island. The +river had busted through its old channel, and the town was surrounded +by roaring torrents. The rain was still raining, and there was heavy +clouds in the northwest that presaged about six more mean annual +rainfalls during the next two weeks. But the worst was yet to come. + +"Bird City hopped out of its nest, waggled its pin feathers and +strolled out for its matutinal toot. Lo! Mexican Joe's place was +closed and likewise the other little 'dobe life saving station. So, +naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and +ports hellum for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there? + +"Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a +sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the +case may be. There are three bartenders; and on the wall is a ten foot +sign reading: 'All Drinks One Dollar.' Andy sits on the safe in his +neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies. +The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been +promised free drinks by the trust. + +"Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was +in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn't any. The citizens saw +that we had 'em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it +would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So +they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it +sounded like a selection on the xylophone. + +"There was about 1,500 grown-up adults in Bird City that had arrived +at years of indiscretion; and the majority of 'em required from three +to twenty drinks a day to make life endurable. The Blue Snake was the +only place where they could get 'em till the flood subsided. It was +beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are. + +"About ten o'clock the silver dollars dropping on the bar slowed down +to playing two-steps and marches instead of jigs. But I looked out the +window and saw a hundred or two of our customers standing in line at +Bird City Savings and Loan Co., and I knew they were borrowing more +money to be sucked in by the clammy tendrils of the octopus. + +"At the fashionable hour of noon everybody went home to dinner. We +told the bartenders to take advantage of the lull, and do the same. +Then me and Andy counted the receipts. We had taken in $1,300. We +calculated that if Bird City would only remain an island for two weeks +the trust would be able to endow the Chicago University with a new +dormitory of padded cells for the faculty, and present every worthy +poor man in Texas with a farm, provided he furnished the site for it. + +"Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem at our success, the +rudiments of the scheme having originated in his own surmises and +premonitions. He got off the safe and lit the biggest cigar in the +house. + + +[Illustration: "Andy was especial inroaded by self-esteem."] + + +"'Jeff,' says he, 'I don't suppose that anywhere in the world you +could find three cormorants with brighter ideas about down-treading +the proletariat than the firm of Peters, Satan and Tucker, +incorporated. We have sure handed the small consumer a giant blow in +the sole apoplectic region. No?' + +"'Well,' says I, 'it does look as if we would have to take up +gastritis and golf or be measured for kilts in spite of ourselves. +This little turn in bug juice is, verily, all to the Skibo. And I can +stand it,' says I, 'I'd rather batten than bant any day.' + +"Andy pours himself out four fingers of our best rye and does with it +as was so intended. It was the first drink I had ever known him to +take. + +"'By way of liberation,' says he, 'to the gods.' + +"And then after thus doing umbrage to the heathen diabetes he drinks +another to our success. And then he begins to toast the trade, +beginning with Raisuli and the Northern Pacific, and on down the line +to the little ones like the school book combine and the oleomargarine +outrages and the Lehigh Valley and Great Scott Coal Federation. + +"'It's all right, Andy,' says I, 'to drink the health of our brother +monopolists, but don't overdo the wassail. You know our most eminent +and loathed multi-corruptionists live on weak tea and dog biscuits.' + +"Andy went in the back room awhile and came out dressed in his best +clothes. There was a kind of murderous and soulful look of gentle +riotousness in his eye that I didn't like. I watched him to see what +turn the whiskey was going to take in him. There are two times when +you never can tell what is going to happen. One is when a man takes +his first drink; and the other is when a woman takes her latest. + +"In less than an hour Andy's skate had turned to an ice yacht. He was +outwardly decent and managed to preserve his aquarium, but inside he +was impromptu and full of unexpectedness. + +"'Jeff,' says he, 'do you know that I'm a crater--a living crater?' + +"'That's a self-evident hypothesis,' says I. 'But you're not Irish. +Why don't you say 'creature,' according to the rules and syntax of +America?' + +"'I'm the crater of a volcano,' says he. 'I'm all aflame and crammed +inside with an assortment of words and phrases that have got to have +an exodus. I can feel millions of synonyms and parts of speech rising +in me,' says he, 'and I've got to make a speech of some sort. Drink,' +says Andy, 'always drives me to oratory.' + +"'It could do no worse,' says I. + +"'From my earliest recollections,' says he, 'alcohol seemed to +stimulate my sense of recitation and rhetoric. Why, in Bryan's second +campaign,' says Andy, 'they used to give me three gin rickeys and +I'd speak two hours longer than Billy himself could on the silver +question. Finally, they persuaded me to take the gold cure.' + +"'If you've got to get rid of your excess verbiage,' says I, 'why +not go out on the river bank and speak a piece? It seems to me +there was an old spell-binder named Cantharides that used to go and +disincorporate himself of his windy numbers along the seashore.' + +"'No,' says Andy, 'I must have an audience. I feel like if I once +turned loose people would begin to call Senator Beveridge the Grand +Young Sphinx of the Wabash. I've got to get an audience together, +Jeff, and get this oral distension assuaged or it may turn in on me +and I'd go about feeling like a deckle-edge edition de luxe of Mrs. E. +D. E. N. Southworth.' + +"'On what special subject of the theorems and topics does your desire +for vocality seem to be connected with?' I asks. + +"'I ain't particular,' says Andy. 'I am equally good and varicose on +all subjects. I can take up the matter of Russian immigration, or +the poetry of John W. Keats, or the tariff, or Kabyle literature, +or drainage, and make my audience weep, cry, sob and shed tears by +turns.' + +"'Well, Andy,' says I, 'if you are bound to get rid of this +accumulation of vernacular suppose you go out in town and work it +on some indulgent citizen. Me and the boys will take care of the +business. Everybody will be through dinner pretty soon, and salt pork +and beans makes a man pretty thirsty. We ought to take in $1,500 more +by midnight.' + +"So Andy goes out of the Blue Snake, and I see him stopping men on +the street and talking to 'em. By and by he has half a dozen in a +bunch listening to him; and pretty soon I see him waving his arms and +elocuting at a good-sized crowd on a corner. When he walks away they +string out after him, talking all the time; and he leads 'em down the +main street of Bird City with more men joining the procession as they +go. It reminded me of the old legerdemain that I'd read in books about +the Pied Piper of Heidsieck charming the children away from the town. + + +[Illustration: "And he leads 'em down the main street of Bird City."] + + +"One o'clock came; and then two; and three got under the wire for +place; and not a Bird citizen came in for a drink. The streets were +deserted except for some ducks and ladies going to the stores. There +was only a light drizzle falling then. + +"A lonesome man came along and stopped in front of the Blue Snake to +scrape the mud off his boots. + +"'Pardner,' says I, 'what has happened? This morning there was hectic +gaiety afoot; and now it seems more like one of them ruined cities of +Tyre and Siphon where the lone lizard crawls on the walls of the main +port-cullis.' + +"'The whole town,' says the muddy man, 'is up in Sperry's wool +warehouse listening to your side-kicker make a speech. He is some +gravy on delivering himself of audible sounds relating to matters and +conclusions,' says the man. + +"'Well, I hope he'll adjourn, sine qua non, pretty soon,' says I, 'for +trade languishes.' + +"Not a customer did we have that afternoon. At six o'clock two +Mexicans brought Andy to the saloon lying across the back of a burro. +We put him in bed while he still muttered and gesticulated with his +hands and feet. + +"Then I locked up the cash and went out to see what had happened. I +met a man who told me all about it. Andy had made the finest two hour +speech that had ever been heard in Texas, he said, or anywhere else in +the world. + +"'What was it about?' I asked. + +"'Temperance,' says he. 'And when he got through, every man in Bird +City signed the pledge for a year.'" + + + + +JEFF PETERS AS A PERSONAL MAGNET + + +Jeff Peters has been engaged in as many schemes for making money as +there are recipes for cooking rice in Charleston, S.C. + +Best of all I like to hear him tell of his earlier days when he sold +liniments and cough cures on street corners, living hand to mouth, +heart to heart with the people, throwing heads or tails with fortune +for his last coin. + +"I struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw," said he, "in a buckskin suit, +moccasins, long hair and a thirty-carat diamond ring that I got from +an actor in Texarkana. I don't know what he ever did with the pocket +knife I swapped him for it. + +"I was Dr. Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian medicine man. I carried +only one best bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It +was made of life-giving plants and herbs accidentally discovered by +Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choctaw Nation, while +gathering truck to garnish a platter of boiled dog for the annual corn +dance. + +"Business hadn't been good in the last town, so I only had five +dollars. I went to the Fisher Hill druggist and he credited me for +half a gross of eight-ounce bottles and corks. I had the labels and +ingredients in my valise, left over from the last town. Life began to +look rosy again after I got in my hotel room with the water running +from the tap, and the Resurrection Bitters lining up on the table by +the dozen. + + +[Illustration: "Life began to look rosy again..."] + + +"Fake? No, sir. There was two dollars' worth of fluid extract of +cinchona and a dime's worth of aniline in that half-gross of bitters. +I've gone through towns years afterwards and had folks ask for 'em +again. + +"I hired a wagon that night and commenced selling the bitters on +Main Street. Fisher Hill was a low, malarial town; and a compound +hypothetical pneumocardiac anti-scorbutic tonic was just what +I diagnosed the crowd as needing. The bitters started off like +sweetbreads-on-toast at a vegetarian dinner. I had sold two dozen at +fifty cents apiece when I felt somebody pull my coat tail. I knew what +that meant; so I climbed down and sneaked a five dollar bill into the +hand of a man with a German silver star on his lapel. + + +[Illustration: "I commenced selling the bitters on Main Street."] + + +"'Constable,' says I, 'it's a fine night.' + +"'Have you got a city license,' he asks, 'to sell this illegitimate +essence of spooju that you flatter by the name of medicine?' + +"'I have not,' says I. 'I didn't know you had a city. If I can find it +to-morrow I'll take one out if it's necessary.' + +"'I'll have to close you up till you do,' says the constable. + +"I quit selling and went back to the hotel. I was talking to the +landlord about it. + +"'Oh, you won't stand no show in Fisher Hill,' says he. 'Dr. Hoskins, +the only doctor here, is a brother-in-law of the Mayor, and they won't +allow no fake doctor to practice in town.' + +"'I don't practice medicine,' says I, 'I've got a State peddler's +license, and I take out a city one wherever they demand it.' + +"I went to the Mayor's office the next morning and they told me +he hadn't showed up yet. They didn't know when he'd be down. So +Doc Waugh-hoo hunches down again in a hotel chair and lights a +jimpson-weed regalia, and waits. + +"By and by a young man in a blue necktie slips into the chair next to +me and asks the time. + +"'Half-past ten,' says I, 'and you are Andy Tucker. I've seen you +work. Wasn't it you that put up the Great Cupid Combination package on +the Southern States? Let's see, it was a Chilian diamond engagement +ring, a wedding ring, a potato masher, a bottle of soothing syrup and +Dorothy Vernon--all for fifty cents.' + +"Andy was pleased to hear that I remembered him. He was a good street +man; and he was more than that--he respected his profession, and he +was satisfied with 300 per cent. profit. He had plenty of offers to go +into the illegitimate drug and garden seed business; but he was never +to be tempted off of the straight path. + +"I wanted a partner, so Andy and me agreed to go out together. I told +him about the situation in Fisher Hill and how finances was low on +account of the local mixture of politics and jalap. Andy had just got +in on the train that morning. He was pretty low himself, and was going +to canvass the whole town for a few dollars to build a new battleship +by popular subscription at Eureka Springs. So we went out and sat on +the porch and talked it over. + +"The next morning at eleven o'clock when I was sitting there alone, an +Uncle Tom shuffles into the hotel and asked for the doctor to come and +see Judge Banks, who, it seems, was the mayor and a mighty sick man. + +"'I'm no doctor,' says I. 'Why don't you go and get the doctor?' + +"'Boss,' says he. 'Doc Hoskins am done gone twenty miles in de country +to see some sick persons. He's de only doctor in de town, and Massa +Banks am powerful bad off. He sent me to ax you to please, suh, come.' + +"'As man to man,' says I, 'I'll go and look him over.' So I put a +bottle of Resurrection Bitters in my pocket and goes up on the hill +to the mayor's mansion, the finest house in town, with a mansard roof +and two cast iron dogs on the lawn. + +"This Mayor Banks was in bed all but his whiskers and feet. He was +making internal noises that would have had everybody in San Francisco +hiking for the parks. A young man was standing by the bed holding a +cup of water. + +"'Doc,' says the Mayor, 'I'm awful sick. I'm about to die. Can't you +do nothing for me?' + +"'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'I'm not a regular preordained disciple of S. Q. +Lapius. I never took a course in a medical college,' says I. 'I've +just come as a fellow man to see if I could be off assistance.' + +"'I'm deeply obliged,' says he. 'Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, Mr. +Biddle. He has tried to alleviate my distress, but without success. +Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow!!' he sings out. + +"I nods at Mr. Biddle and sets down by the bed and feels the mayor's +pulse. 'Let me see your liver--your tongue, I mean,' says I. Then I +turns up the lids of his eyes and looks close that the pupils of 'em. + +"'How long have you been sick?' I asked. + +"'I was taken down--ow-ouch--last night,' says the Mayor. 'Gimme +something for it, doc, won't you?' + +"'Mr. Fiddle,' says I, 'raise the window shade a bit, will you?' + +"'Biddle,' says the young man. 'Do you feel like you could eat some +ham and eggs, Uncle James?' + +"'Mr. Mayor,' says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade +and listening, 'you've got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the +right clavicle of the harpsichord!' + +"'Good Lord!' says he, with a groan, 'Can't you rub something on it, +or set it or anything?' + +"I picks up my hat and starts for the door. + +"'You ain't going, doc?' says the Mayor with a howl. 'You ain't going +away and leave me to die with this--superfluity of the clapboards, are +you?' + +"'Common humanity, Dr. Whoa-ha,' says Mr. Biddle, 'ought to prevent +your deserting a fellow-human in distress.' + +"'Dr. Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,' says I. And then I +walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair. + +"'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do +you no good. But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are +high enough,' says I. + +"'And what is that?' says he. + +"'Scientific demonstrations,' says I. 'The triumph of mind over +sarsaparilla. The belief that there is no pain and sickness except +what is produced when we ain't feeling well. Declare yourself in +arrears. Demonstrate.' + +"'What is this paraphernalia you speak of, Doc?' says the Mayor. 'You +ain't a Socialist, are you?' + +"'I am speaking,' says I, 'of the great doctrine of psychic +financiering--of the enlightened school of long-distance, +sub-conscientious treatment of fallacies and meningitis--of that +wonderful in-door sport known as personal magnetism.' + +"'Can you work it, doc?' asks the Mayor. + +"'I'm one of the Sole Sanhedrims and Ostensible Hooplas of the Inner +Pulpit,' says I. 'The lame talk and the blind rubber whenever I make +a pass at 'em. I am a medium, a coloratura hypnotist and a spirituous +control. It was only through me at the recent seances at Ann Arbor +that the late president of the Vinegar Bitters Company could revisit +the earth to communicate with his sister Jane. You see me peddling +medicine on the street,' says I, 'to the poor. I don't practice +personal magnetism on them. I do not drag it in the dust,' says I, +'because they haven't got the dust.' + +"'Will you treat my case?' asks the Mayor. + +"'Listen,' says I. 'I've had a good deal of trouble with medical +societies everywhere I've been. I don't practice medicine. But, to +save your life, I'll give you the psychic treatment if you'll agree as +mayor not to push the license question.' + +"'Of course I will,' says he. 'And now get to work, doc, for them +pains are coming on again.' + +"'My fee will be $250.00, cure guaranteed in two treatments,' says I. + +"'All right,' says the Mayor. 'I'll pay it. I guess my life's worth +that much.' + +"I sat down by the bed and looked him straight in the eye. + +"'Now,' says I, 'get your mind off the disease. You ain't sick. +You haven't got a heart or a clavicle or a funny bone or brains or +anything. You haven't got any pain. Declare error. Now you feel the +pain that you didn't have leaving, don't you?' + +"'I do feel some little better, doc,' says the Mayor, 'darned if I +don't. Now state a few lies about my not having this swelling in my +left side, and I think I could be propped up and have some sausage and +buckwheat cakes.' + +"I made a few passes with my hands. + +"'Now,' says I, 'the inflammation's gone. The right lobe of the +perihelion has subsided. You're getting sleepy. You can't hold your +eyes open any longer. For the present the disease is checked. Now, you +are asleep.' + +"The Mayor shut his eyes slowly and began to snore. + +"'You observe, Mr. Tiddle,' says I, 'the wonders of modern science.' + +"'Biddle,' says he, 'When will you give uncle the rest of the +treatment, Dr. Pooh-pooh?' + +"'Waugh-hoo,' says I. 'I'll come back at eleven to-morrow. When he +wakes up give him eight drops of turpentine and three pounds of steak. +Good morning.' + +"The next morning I was back on time. 'Well, Mr. Riddle,' says I, when +he opened the bedroom door, 'and how is uncle this morning?' + +"'He seems much better,' says the young man. + +"The mayor's color and pulse was fine. I gave him another treatment, +and he said the last of the pain left him. + +"'Now,' says I, 'you'd better stay in bed for a day or two, and you'll +be all right. It's a good thing I happened to be in Fisher Hill, Mr. +Mayor,' says I, 'for all the remedies in the cornucopia that the +regular schools of medicine use couldn't have saved you. And now +that error has flew and pain proved a perjurer, let's allude to a +cheerfuller subject--say the fee of $250. No checks, please, I hate +to write my name on the back of a check almost as bad as I do on the +front.' + +"'I've got the cash here,' says the mayor, pulling a pocket book from +under his pillow. + +"He counts out five fifty-dollar notes and holds 'em in his hand. + +"'Bring the receipt,' he says to Biddle. + +"I signed the receipt and the mayor handed me the money. I put it in +my inside pocket careful. + +"'Now do your duty, officer,' says the mayor, grinning much unlike a +sick man. + +"Mr. Biddle lays his hand on my arm. + +"'You're under arrest, Dr. Waugh-hoo, alias Peters,' says he, 'for +practising medicine without authority under the State law.' + +"'Who are you?' I asks. + +"'I'll tell you who he is,' says Mr. Mayor, sitting up in bed. 'He's a +detective employed by the State Medical Society. He's been following +you over five counties. He came to me yesterday and we fixed up this +scheme to catch you. I guess you won't do any more doctoring around +these parts, Mr. Fakir. What was it you said I had, doc?' the mayor +laughs, 'compound--well, it wasn't softening of the brain, I guess, +anyway.' + +"'A detective,' says I. + +"'Correct,' says Biddle. 'I'll have to turn you over to the sheriff.' + +"'Let's see you do it,' says I, and I grabs Biddle by the throat and +half throws him out the window, but he pulls a gun and sticks it under +my chin, and I stand still. Then he puts handcuffs on me, and takes +the money out of my pocket. + + +[Illustration: "And I grabs Biddle by the throat."] + + +"'I witness,' says he, 'that they're the same bank bills that you and +I marked, Judge Banks. I'll turn them over to the sheriff when we get +to his office, and he'll send you a receipt. They'll have to be used +as evidence in the case.' + +"'All right, Mr. Biddle,' says the mayor. 'And now, Doc Waugh-hoo,' he +goes on, 'why don't you demonstrate? Can't you pull the cork out of +your magnetism with your teeth and hocus-pocus them handcuffs off?' + +"'Come on, officer,' says I, dignified. 'I may as well make the best +of it.' And then I turns to old Banks and rattles my chains. + +"'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'the time will come soon when you'll believe +that personal magnetism is a success. And you'll be sure that it +succeeded in this case, too.' + +"And I guess it did. + +"When we got nearly to the gate, I says: 'We might meet somebody now, +Andy. I reckon you better take 'em off, and--' Hey? Why, of course +it was Andy Tucker. That was his scheme; and that's how we got the +capital to go into business together." + + + + +MODERN RURAL SPORTS + + +Jeff Peters must be reminded. Whenever he is called upon, pointedly, +for a story, he will maintain that his life has been as devoid of +incident as the longest of Trollope's novels. But lured, he will +divulge. Therefore I cast many and divers flies upon the current of +his thoughts before I feel a nibble. + +"I notice," said I, "that the Western farmers, in spite of their +prosperity, are running after their old populistic idols again." + +"It's the running season," said Jeff, "for farmers, shad, maple trees +and the Connemaugh river. I know something about farmers. I thought I +struck one once that had got out of the rut; but Andy Tucker proved to +me I was mistaken. 'Once a farmer, always a sucker,' said Andy. 'He's +the man that's shoved into the front row among bullets, ballots and +the ballet. He's the funny-bone and gristle of the country,' said +Andy, 'and I don't know who we would do without him.' + +"One morning me and Andy wakes up with sixty-eight cents between us +in a yellow pine hotel on the edge of the pre-digested hoe-cake belt +of Southern Indiana. How we got off the train there the night before +I can't tell you; for she went through the village so fast that what +looked like a saloon to us through the car window turned out to be a +composite view of a drug store and a water tank two blocks apart. Why +we got off at the first station we could, belongs to a little oroide +gold watch and Alaska diamond deal we failed to pull off the day +before, over the Kentucky line. + +"When I woke up I heard roosters crowing, and smelt something like the +fumes of nitro-muriatic acid, and heard something heavy fall on the +floor below us, and a man swearing. + +"'Cheer up, Andy,' says I. 'We're in a rural community. Somebody has +just tested a gold brick downstairs. We'll go out and get what's +coming to us from a farmer; and then yoicks! and away.' + +"Farmers was always a kind of reserve fund to me. Whenever I was +in hard luck I'd go to the crossroads, hook a finger in a farmer's +suspender, recite the prospectus of my swindle in a mechanical kind of +a way, look over what he had, give him back his keys, whetstone and +papers that was of no value except to owner, and stroll away without +asking any questions. Farmers are not fair game to me as high up in +our business as me and Andy was; but there was times when we found 'em +useful, just as Wall Street does the Secretary of the Treasury now and +then. + +"When we went down stairs we saw we was in the midst of the finest +farming section we ever see. About two miles away on a hill was a +big white house in a grove surrounded by a wide-spread agricultural +agglomeration of fields and barns and pastures and out-houses. + +"'Whose house is that?' we asked the landlord. + +"'That,' says he, 'is the domicile and the arboreal, terrestrial +and horticultural accessories of Farmer Ezra Plunkett, one of our +county's most progressive citizens.' + +"After breakfast me and Andy, with eight cents capital left, casts the +horoscope of the rural potentate. + +"'Let me go alone,' says I. 'Two of us against one farmer would look +as one-sided as Roosevelt using both hands to kill a grizzly.' + +"'All right,' says Andy. 'I like to be a true sport even when I'm only +collecting rebates from the rutabag raisers. What bait are you going +to use for this Ezra thing?' Andy asks me. + +"'Oh,' I says, 'the first thing that come to hand in the suit case. I +reckon I'll take along some of the new income tax receipts, and the +recipe for making clover honey out of clabber and apple peelings; and +the order blanks for the McGuffey's readers, which afterwards turn out +to be McCormick's reapers; and the pearl necklace found on the train; +and a pocket-size goldbrick; and a--' + +"'That'll be enough,' says Andy. 'Any one of the lot ought to land on +Ezra. And say, Jeff, make that succotash fancier give you nice, clean, +new bills. It's a disgrace to our Department of Agriculture, Civil +Service and Pure Food Law the kind of stuff some of these farmers hand +out to use. I've had to take rolls from 'em that looked like bundles +of microbe cultures captured out of a Red Cross ambulance.' + +"So, I goes to a livery stable and hires a buggy on my looks. I drove +out to the Plunkett farm and hitched. There was a man sitting on the +front steps of the house. He had on a white flannel suit, a diamond +ring, golf cap and a pink ascot tie. 'Summer boarder,' says I to +myself. + +"'I'd like to see Farmer Ezra Plunkett,' says I to him. + +"'You see him,' says he. 'What seems to be on your mind?' + +"I never answered a word. I stood still, repeating to myself the +rollicking lines of that merry jingle, 'The Man with the Hoe.' When +I looked at this farmer, the little devices I had in my pocket for +buncoing the pushed-back brows seemed as hopeless as trying to shake +down the Beef Trust with a mittimus and a parlor rifle. + +"'Well,' says he, looking at me close, 'speak up. I see the left pocket +of your coat sags a good deal. Out with the goldbrick first. I'm rather +more interested in the bricks than I am in the trick sixty-day notes +and the lost silver mine story.' + +"I had a kind of cerebral sensation of foolishness in my ideas of +ratiocination; but I pulled out the little brick and unwrapped my +handkerchief off it. + +"'One dollar and eighty cents,' says the farmer hefting it in his +hand. 'Is it a trade?' + +"'The lead in it is worth more than that,' says I, dignified. I put it +back in my pocket. + +"'All right,' says he. 'But I sort of wanted it for the collection I'm +starting. I got a $5,000 one last week for $2.10.' + +"Just then a telephone bell rings in the house. + +"'Come in, Bunk,' says the farmer, 'and look at my place. It's kind of +lonesome here sometimes. I think that's New York calling.' + +"We went inside. The room looked like a Broadway stockbroker's--light +oak desks, two 'phones, Spanish leather upholstered chairs and +couches, oil paintings in gilt frames a foot deep and a ticker hitting +off the news in one corner. + +"'Hello, hello!' says this funny farmer. 'Is that the Regent Theatre? +Yes; this is Plunkett, of Woodbine Centre. Reserve four orchestra +seats for Friday evening--my usual ones. Yes; Friday--good-bye.' + +"'I run over to New York every two weeks to see a show,' says the +farmer, hanging up the receiver. 'I catch the eighteen-hour flyer at +Indianapolis, spend ten hours in the heyday of night on the Yappian +Way, and get home in time to see the chickens go to roost forty-eight +hours later. Oh, the pristine Hubbard squasherino of the cave-dwelling +period is getting geared up some for the annual meeting of the +Don't-Blow-Out-the-Gas Association, don't you think, Mr. Bunk?' + +"'I seem to perceive,' says I, 'a kind of hiatus in the agrarian +traditions in which heretofore, I have reposed confidence.' + +"'Sure, Bunk,' says he. 'The yellow primrose on the river's brim is +getting to look to us Reubs like a holiday edition de luxe of the +Language of Flowers with deckle edges and frontispiece.' + +"Just then the telephone calls him again. + +"'Hello, hello!' says he. 'Oh, that's Perkins, at Milldale. I told you +$800 was too much for that horse. Have you got him there? Good. Let me +see him. Get away from the transmitter. Now make him trot in a circle. +Faster. Yes, I can hear him. Keep on--faster yet. ... That'll do. +Now lead him up to the phone. Closer. Get his nose nearer. There. Now +wait. No; I don't want that horse. What? No; not at any price. He +interferes; and he's windbroken. Goodbye.' + +"'Now, Bunk,' says the farmer, 'do you begin to realize that +agriculture has had a hair cut? You belong in a bygone era. Why, +Tom Lawson himself knows better than to try to catch an up-to-date +agriculturalist napping. It's Saturday, the Fourteenth, on the farm, +you bet. Now, look here, and see how we keep up with the day's +doings.' + +"He shows me a machine on a table with two things for your ears like +the penny-in-the-slot affairs. I puts it on and listens. A female +voice starts up reading headlines of murders, accidents and other +political casualities. + +"'What you hear,' says the farmer, 'is a synopsis of to-day's news in +the New York, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco papers. It is wired +in to our Rural News Bureau and served hot to subscribers. On this +table you see the principal dailies and weeklies of the country. Also +a special service of advance sheets of the monthly magazines.' + +"I picks up one sheet and sees that it's headed: 'Special Advance +Proofs. In July, 1909, the _Century_ will say'--and so forth. + +"The farmer rings up somebody--his manager, I reckon--and tells him to +let that herd of 15 Jerseys go at $600 a head; and to sow the 900-acre +field in wheat; and to have 200 extra cans ready at the station for +the milk trolley car. Then he passes the Henry Clays and sets out a +bottle of green chartreuse, and goes over and looks at the ticker +tape. + +"'Consolidated Gas up two points,' says he. 'Oh, very well.' + +"'Ever monkey with copper?' I asks. + +"'Stand back!' says he, raising his hand, 'or I'll call the dog. I +told you not to waste your time.' + +"After a while he says: 'Bunk, if you don't mind my telling you, your +company begins to cloy slightly. I've got to write an article on the +Chimera of Communism for a magazine, and attend a meeting of the Race +Track Association this afternoon. Of course you understand by now that +you can't get my proxy for your Remedy, whatever it may be.' + +"Well, sir, all I could think of to do was to go out and get in the +buggy. The horse turned round and took me back to the hotel. I hitched +him and went in to see Andy. In his room I told him about this farmer, +word for word; and I sat picking at the table cover like one bereft of +sagaciousness. + +"'I don't understand it,' says I, humming a sad and foolish little +song to cover my humiliation. + +"Andy walks up and down the room for a long time, biting the left end +of his mustache as he does when in the act of thinking. + +"'Jeff,' says he, finally, 'I believe your story of this expurgated +rustic; but I am not convinced. It looks incredulous to me that he +could have inoculated himself against all the preordained systems +of bucolic bunco. Now, you never regarded me as a man of special +religious proclivities, did you, Jeff?' says Andy. + +"'Well,' says I, 'No. But,' says I, not to wound his feelings, 'I have +also observed many church members whose said proclivities were not so +outwardly developed that they would show on a white handkerchief if +you rubbed 'em with it.' + +"'I have always been a deep student of nature from creation down,' +says Andy, 'and I believe in an ultimatum design of Providence. +Farmers was made for a purpose; and that was to furnish a livelihood +to men like me and you. Else why was we given brains? It is my belief +that the manna that the Israelites lived on for forty years in the +wilderness was only a figurative word for farmers; and they kept up +the practice to this day. And now,' says Andy, 'I am going to test my +theory "Once a farmer, always a come-on," in spite of the veneering +and the orifices that a spurious civilization has brought to him.' + +"'You'll fail, same as I did,' says I. 'This one's shook off the +shackles of the sheep-fold. He's entrenched behind the advantages of +electricity, education, literature and intelligence.' + +"'I'll try,' said Andy. 'There are certain Laws of Nature that Free +Rural Delivery can't overcome.' + +"Andy fumbles around awhile in the closet and comes out dressed in a +suit with brown and yellow checks as big as your hand. His vest is red +with blue dots, and he wears a high silk hat. I noticed he'd soaked +his sandy mustache in a kind of blue ink. + +"'Great Barnums?' says I. 'You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig +man.' + +"'Right,' says Andy. 'Is the buggy outside? Wait here till I come +back. I won't be long.' + +"Two hours afterwards Andy steps into the room and lays a wad of money +on the table. + +"'Eight hundred and sixty dollars,' said he. 'Let me tell you. He +was in. He looked me over and began to guy me. I didn't say a word, +but got out the walnut shells and began to roll the little ball on +the table. I whistled a tune or two, and then I started up the old +formula. + +"'Step up lively, gentlemen,' says I, 'and watch the little ball. It +costs you nothing to look. There you see it, and there you don't. +Guess where the little joker is. The quickness of the hand deceives +the eye. + +"'I steals a look at the farmer man. I see the sweat coming out on his +forehead. He goes over and closes the front door and watches me some +more. Directly he says: "I'll bet you twenty I can pick the shell the +ball's under now." + +"'After that,' goes on Andy, 'there is nothing new to relate. He only +had $860 cash in the house. When I left he followed me to the gate. +There was tears in his eyes when he shook hands. + +"'"Bunk," says he, "thank you for the only real pleasure I've had in +years. It brings up happy old days when I was only a farmer and not an +agriculturalist. God bless you."'" + +Here Jeff Peters ceased, and I inferred that his story was done. + +"Then you think"--I began. + +"Yes," said Jeff. "Something like that. You let the farmers go ahead +and amuse themselves with politics. Farming's a lonesome life; and +they've been against the shell game before." + + + + +THE CHAIR OF PHILANTHROMATHEMATICS + + +"I see that the cause of Education has received the princely gift of +more than fifty millions of dollars," said I. + +I was gleaning the stray items from the evening papers while Jeff +Peters packed his briar pipe with plug cut. + +"Which same," said Jeff, "calls for a new deck, and a recitation by +the entire class in philanthromathematics." + +"Is that an allusion?" I asked. + +"It is," said Jeff. "I never told you about the time when me and Andy +Tucker was philanthropists, did I? It was eight years ago in Arizona. +Andy and me was out in the Gila mountains with a two-horse wagon +prospecting for silver. We struck it, and sold out to parties in +Tucson for $25,000. They paid our check at the bank in silver--a +thousand dollars in a sack. We loaded it in our wagon and drove +east a hundred miles before we recovered our presence of intellect. +Twenty-five thousand dollars doesn't sound like so much when you're +reading the annual report of the Pennsylvania Railroad or listening to +an actor talking about his salary; but when you can raise up a wagon +sheet and kick around your bootheel and hear every one of 'em ring +against another it makes you feel like you was a night-and-day bank +with the clock striking twelve. + +"The third day out we drove into one of the most specious and tidy +little towns that Nature or Rand and McNally ever turned out. It was +in the foothills, and mitigated with trees and flowers and about 2,000 +head of cordial and dilatory inhabitants. The town seemed to be called +Floresville, and Nature had not contaminated it with many railroads, +fleas or Eastern tourists. + +"Me and Andy deposited our money to the credit of Peters and Tucker in +the Esperanza Savings Bank, and got rooms at the Skyview Hotel. After +supper we lit up, and sat out on the gallery and smoked. Then was +when the philanthropy idea struck me. I suppose every grafter gets it +sometime. + +"When a man swindles the public out of a certain amount he begins to +get scared and wants to return part of it. And if you'll watch close +and notice the way his charity runs you'll see that he tries to +restore it to the same people he got it from. As a hydrostatical case, +take, let's say, A. A made his millions selling oil to poor students +who sit up nights studying political economy and methods for +regulating the trusts. So, back to the universities and colleges goes +his conscience dollars. + +"There's B got his from the common laboring man that works with his +hands and tools. How's he to get some of the remorse fund back into +their overalls? + +"'Aha!' says B, 'I'll do it in the name of Education. I've skinned the +laboring man,' says he to himself, 'but, according to the old proverb, +"Charity covers a multitude of skins."' + +"So he puts up eighty million dollars' worth of libraries; and the +boys with the dinner pail that builds 'em gets the benefit. + +"'Where's the books?' asks the reading public. + +"'I dinna ken,' says B. 'I offered ye libraries; and there they are. I +suppose if I'd given ye preferred steel trust stock instead ye'd have +wanted the water in it set out in cut glass decanters. Hoot, for ye!' + +"But, as I said, the owning of so much money was beginning to give me +philanthropitis. It was the first time me and Andy had ever made a +pile big enough to make us stop and think how we got it. + +"'Andy,' says I, 'we're wealthy--not beyond the dreams of average; but +in our humble way we are comparatively as rich as Greasers. I feel as +if I'd like to do something for as well as to humanity.' + +"'I was thinking the same thing, Jeff,' says he. 'We've been gouging +the public for a long time with all kinds of little schemes from +selling self-igniting celluloid collars to flooding Georgia with Hoke +Smith presidential campaign buttons. I'd like, myself, to hedge a bet +or two in the graft game if I could do it without actually banging +the cymbalines in the Salvation Army or teaching a bible class by the +Bertillon system. + +"'What'll we do?' says Andy. 'Give free grub to the poor or send a +couple of thousand to George Cortelyou?' + +"'Neither,' says I. 'We've got too much money to be implicated in +plain charity; and we haven't got enough to make restitution. So, +we'll look about for something that's about half way between the two.' + +"The next day in walking around Floresville we see on a hill a big red +brick building that appears to be disinhabited. The citizens speak up +and tell us that it was begun for a residence several years before by +a mine owner. After running up the house he finds he only had $2.80 +left to furnish it with, so he invests that in whiskey and jumps off +the roof on a spot where he now requiescats in pieces. + +"As soon as me and Andy saw that building the same idea struck both of +us. We would fix it up with lights and pen wipers and professors, and +put an iron dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn, +and start one of the finest free educational institutions in the world +right there. + +"So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, who +falls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine house +to us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to the +cause of progress and enlightenment. Andy makes an hour-and-a-half +speech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have a +moral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbet. + +"Andy and me didn't lose any time in philanthropping. We put every man +in town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on the +building, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wire +to Frisco for a car load of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders, +dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges, +twenty-seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and an +open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. +I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; +but the telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being an +ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a +curry-comb among 'em. + +"While the weekly papers was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy +we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f.o.b., six +professors immediately--one English literature, one up-to-date +dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy--democrat +preferred--one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, +with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to +run between $800 and $800.50. + +"Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved +the words: 'The World's University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons and +Proprietors. And when September the first got a cross-mark on the +calendar, the come-ons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the +tri-weekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled, and +red-headed, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andy +and me got 'em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for the +students. + +"They came in bunches. We had advertised the University in all +the state papers, and it did us good to see how quick the country +responded. Two hundred and nineteen husky lads aging along from 18 up +to chin whiskers answered the clarion call of free education. They +ripped open that town, sponged the seams, turned it, lined it with new +mohair; and you couldn't have told it from Harvard or Goldfields at +the March term of court. + +"They marched up and down the streets waving flags with the World's +University colors--ultra-marine and blue--and they certainly made a +lively place of Floresville. Andy made them a speech from the balcony +of the Skyview Hotel, and the whole town was out celebrating. + +"In about two weeks the professors got the students disarmed and +herded into classes. I don't believe there's any pleasure equal +to being a philanthropist. Me and Andy bought high silk hats and +pretended to dodge the two reporters of the Floresville Gazette. +The paper had a man to kodak us whenever we appeared on the street, +and ran our pictures every week over the column headed 'Educational +Notes.' Andy lectured twice a week at the University; and afterward +I would rise and tell a humorous story. Once the Gazette printed my +pictures with Abe Lincoln on one side and Marshall P. Wilder on the +other. + +"Andy was as interested in philanthropy as I was. We used to wake up +of nights and tell each other new ideas for booming the University. + +"'Andy,' says I to him one day, 'there's something we overlooked. The +boys ought to have dromedaries.' + +"'What's that?' Andy asks. + +"'Why, something to sleep in, of course,' says I. 'All colleges have +'em.' + +"'Oh, you mean pajamas,' says Andy. + +"'I do not,' says I. 'I mean dromedaries.' But I never could make Andy +understand; so we never ordered 'em. Of course, I meant them long +bedrooms in colleges where the scholars sleep in a row. + +"Well, sir, the World's University was a success. We had scholars +from five States and territories, and Floresville had a boom. A new +shooting gallery and a pawn shop and two more saloons started; and the +boys got up a college yell that went this way: + + + "'Raw, raw, raw, + Done, done, done, + Peters, Tucker, + Lots of fun, + Bow-wow-wow, + Haw-hee-haw, + World University, + Hip, hurrah!' + + +"The scholars was a fine lot of young men, and me and Andy was as +proud of 'em as if they belonged to our own family. + +"But one day about the last of October Andy comes to me and asks if I +have any idea how much money we had left in the bank. I guesses about +sixteen thousand. 'Our balance,' says Andy, 'is $821.62.' + +"'What!' says I, with a kind of a yell. 'Do you mean to tell me that +them infernal clod-hopping, dough-headed, pup-faced, goose-brained, +gate-stealing, rabbit-eared sons of horse thieves have soaked us for +that much?' + +"'No less,' says Andy. + +"'Then, to Helvetia with philanthropy,' says I. + +"'Not necessarily,' says Andy. 'Philanthropy,' says he, 'when run on +a good business basis is one of the best grafts going. I'll look into +the matter and see if it can't be straightened out.' + +"The next week I am looking over the payroll of our faculty when I +run across a new name--Professor James Darnley McCorkle, chair of +mathematics; salary $100 per week. I yells so loud that Andy runs in +quick. + +"'What's this,' says I. 'A professor of mathematics at more than +$5,000 a year? How did this happen? Did he get in through the window +and appoint himself?' + +"'I wired to Frisco for him a week ago,' says Andy. 'In ordering the +faculty we seemed to have overlooked the chair of mathematics.' + +"'A good thing we did,' says I. 'We can pay his salary two weeks, and +then our philanthropy will look like the ninth hole on the Skibo golf +links.' + +"'Wait a while,' says Andy, 'and see how things turn out. We have +taken up too noble a cause to draw out now. Besides, the further I +gaze into the retail philanthropy business the better it looks to me. +I never thought about investigating it before. Come to think of it +now,' goes on Andy, 'all the philanthropists I ever knew had plenty of +money. I ought to have looked into that matter long ago, and located +which was the cause and which was the effect.' + +"I had confidence in Andy's chicanery in financial affairs, so I left +the whole thing in his hands. The University was flourishing fine, +and me and Andy kept our silk hats shined up, and Floresville kept on +heaping honors on us like we was millionaires instead of almost busted +philanthropists. + +"The students kept the town lively and prosperous. Some stranger came +to town and started a faro bank over the Red Front livery stable, and +began to amass money in quantities. Me and Andy strolled up one night +and piked a dollar or two for sociability. There were about fifty of +our students there drinking rum punches and shoving high stacks of +blues and reds about the table as the dealer turned the cards up. + +"'Why, dang it, Andy,' says I, 'these free-school-hunting, +gander-headed, silk-socked little sons of sap-suckers have got more +money than you and me ever had. Look at the rolls they're pulling out +of their pistol pockets?' + +"'Yes,' says Andy, 'a good many of them are sons of wealthy miners and +stockmen. It's very sad to see 'em wasting their opportunities this +way.' + +"At Christmas all the students went home to spend the holidays. We had +a farewell blowout at the University, and Andy lectured on 'Modern +Music and Prehistoric Literature of the Archipelagos.' Each one of the +faculty answered to toasts, and compared me and Andy to Rockefeller +and the Emperor Marcus Autolycus. I pounded on the table and yelled +for Professor McCorkle; but it seems he wasn't present on the +occasion. I wanted a look at the man that Andy thought could earn $100 +a week in philanthropy that was on the point of making an assignment. + +"The students all left on the night train; and the town sounded as +quiet as the campus of a correspondence school at midnight. When I +went to the hotel I saw a light in Andy's room, and I opened the door +and walked in. + +"There sat Andy and the faro dealer at a table dividing a two-foot +high stack of currency in thousand-dollar packages. + +"'Correct,' says Andy. 'Thirty-one thousand apiece. Come in, Jeff,' +says he. 'This is our share of the profits of the first half of +the scholastic term of the World's University, incorporated and +philanthropated. Are you convinced now,' says Andy, 'that philanthropy +when practiced in a business way is an art that blesses him who gives +as well as him who receives?' + +"'Great!' says I, feeling fine. 'I'll admit you are the doctor this +time.' + +"'We'll be leaving on the morning train,' says Andy. 'You'd better get +your collars and cuffs and press clippings together.' + +"'Great!' says I. 'I'll be ready. But, Andy,' says I, 'I wish I could +have met that Professor James Darnley McCorkle before we went. I had a +curiosity to know that man.' + +"'That'll be easy,' says Andy, turning around to the faro dealer. + +"'Jim,' says Andy, 'shake hands with Mr. Peters.'" + + + + +THE HAND THAT RILES THE WORLD + + +"Many of our great men," said I (apropos of many things), "have +declared that they owe their success to the aid and encouragement of +some brilliant woman." + +"I know," said Jeff Peters. "I've read in history and mythology about +Joan of Arc and Mme. Yale and Mrs. Caudle and Eve and other noted +females of the past. But, in my opinion, the woman of to-day is of +little use in politics or business. What's she best in, anyway?--men +make the best cooks, milliners, nurses, housekeepers, stenographers, +clerks, hairdressers and launderers. About the only job left that a +woman can beat a man in is female impersonator in vaudeville." + +"I would have thought," said I, "that occasionally, anyhow, you would +have found the wit and intuition of woman valuable to you in your +lines of--er--business." + +"Now, wouldn't you," said Jeff, with an emphatic nod--"wouldn't you +have imagined that? But a woman is an absolutely unreliable partner in +any straight swindle. She's liable to turn honest on you when you are +depending upon her the most. I tried 'em once. + +"Bill Humble, an old friend of mine in the Territories, conceived +the illusion that he wanted to be appointed United States Marshall. +At that time me and Andy was doing a square, legitimate business of +selling walking canes. If you unscrewed the head of one and turned it +up to your mouth a half pint of good rye whiskey would go trickling +down your throat to reward you for your act of intelligence. The +deputies was annoying me and Andy some, and when Bill spoke to me +about his officious aspirations, I saw how the appointment as Marshall +might help along the firm of Peters & Tucker. + + +[Illustration: "Selling walking canes."] + + +"'Jeff,' says Bill to me, 'you are a man of learning and education, +besides having knowledge and information concerning not only rudiments +but facts and attainments.' + +"'I do,' says I, 'and I have never regretted it. I am not one,' says +I, 'who would cheapen education by making it free. Tell me,' says I, +'which is of the most value to mankind, literature or horse racing?' + +"'Why--er--, playing the po--I mean, of course, the poets and the +great writers have got the call, of course,' says Bill. + +"'Exactly,' says I. 'Then why do the master minds of finance and +philanthropy,' says I, 'charge us $2 to get into a race-track and let +us into a library free? Is that distilling into the masses,' says +I, 'a correct estimate of the relative value of the two means of +self-culture and disorder?' + +"'You are arguing outside of my faculties of sense and rhetoric,' says +Bill. 'What I wanted you to do is to go to Washington and dig out this +appointment for me. I haven't no ideas of cultivation and intrigue. +I'm a plain citizen and I need the job. I've killed seven men,' says +Bill; 'I've got nine children; I've been a good Republican ever since +the first of May; I can't read nor write, and I see no reason why I +ain't illegible for the office. And I think your partner, Mr. Tucker,' +goes on Bill, 'is also a man of sufficient ingratiation and connected +system of mental delinquency to assist you in securing the appointment. +I will give you preliminary,' says Bill, '$1,000 for drinks, bribes and +carfare in Washington. If you land the job I will pay you $1,000 more, +cash down, and guarantee you impunity in boot-legging whiskey for +twelve months. Are you patriotic to the West enough to help me put this +thing through the Whitewashed Wigwam of the Great Father of the most +eastern flag station of the Pennsylvania Railroad?' says Bill. + + +[Illustration: "I'm a plain citizen and I need the job."] + + +"Well, I talked to Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy +was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, +as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination +steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, +potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic +temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher's or a moral man's is +by purely commercial deflections. So we accepted Bill's offer, and +strikes out for Washington. + +"Says I to Andy, when we get located at a hotel on South Dakota +Avenue, G.S.S.W. 'Now Andy, for the first time in our lives we've got +to do a real dishonest act. Lobbying is something we've never been +used to; but we've got to scandalize ourselves for Bill Humble's sake. +In a straight and legitimate business,' says I, 'we could afford +to introduce a little foul play and chicanery, but in a disorderly +and heinous piece of malpractice like this it seems to me that the +straightforward and aboveboard way is the best. I propose,' says I, +'that we hand over $500 of this money to the chairman of the national +campaign committee, get a receipt, lay the receipt on the President's +desk and tell him about Bill. The President is a man who would +appreciate a candidate who went about getting office that way instead +of pulling wires.' + +"Andy agreed with me, but after we talked the scheme over with the +hotel clerk we give that plan up. He told us that there was only one +way to get an appointment in Washington, and that was through a lady +lobbyist. He gave us the address of one he recommended, a Mrs. Avery, +who he said was high up in sociable and diplomatic rings and circles. + +"The next morning at 10 o'clock me and Andy called at her hotel, and +was shown up to her reception room. + +"This Mrs. Avery was a solace and a balm to the eyesight. She had hair +the color of the back of a twenty dollar gold certificate, blue eyes +and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July +magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge. + +"She had on a low necked dress covered with silver spangles, and +diamond rings and ear bobs. Her arms was bare; and she was using a +desk telephone with one hand, and drinking tea with the other. + +"'Well, boys,' says she after a bit, 'what is it?' + + +[Illustration: "'Well boys, what is it?'"] + + +"I told her in as few words as possible what we wanted for Bill, and +the price we could pay. + +"'Those western appointments,' says she, 'are easy. Le'me see, now,' +says she, 'who could put that through for us. No use fooling with the +Territorial delegates. I guess,' says she, 'that Senator Sniper would +be about the man. He's from somewheres in the West. Let's see how he +stands on my private menu card.' She takes some papers out of a +pigeon-hole with the letter 'S' over it. + +"'Yes,' says she, 'he's marked with a star; that means "ready to +serve." Now, let's see. "Age 55; married twice; Presbyterian, likes +blondes, Tolstoi, poker and stewed terrapin; sentimental at third +bottle of wine." Yes,' she goes on, 'I am sure I can have your friend, +Mr. Bummer, appointed Minister to Brazil.' + +"'Humble,' says I. 'And United States Marshal was the berth.' + +"'Oh, yes,' says Mrs. Avery. 'I have so many deals of this sort I +sometimes get them confused. Give me all the memoranda you have of +the case, Mr. Peters, and come back in four days. I think it can be +arranged by then.' + +"So me and Andy goes back to our hotel and waits. Andy walks up and +down and chews the left end of his mustache. + +"'A woman of high intellect and perfect beauty is a rare thing, Jeff,' +says he. + +"'As rare,' says I, 'as an omelet made from the eggs of the fabulous +bird known as the epidermis,' says I. + +"'A woman like that,' says Andy, 'ought to lead a man to the highest +positions of opulence and fame.' + +"'I misdoubt,' says I, 'if any woman ever helped a man to secure a job +any more than to have his meals ready promptly and spread a report +that the other candidate's wife had once been a shoplifter. They are +no more adapted for business and politics,' says I, 'than Algernon +Charles Swinburne is to be floor manager at one of Chuck Connor's +annual balls. I know,' says I to Andy, 'that sometimes a woman seems +to step out into the kalsomine light as the charge d'affaires of her +man's political job. But how does it come out? Say, they have a neat +little berth somewhere as foreign consul of record to Afghanistan or +lockkeeper on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. One day this man finds +his wife putting on her overshoes and three months supply of bird seed +into the canary's cage. "Sioux Falls?" he asks with a kind of hopeful +light in his eye. "No, Arthur," says she, "Washington. We're wasted +here," says she. "You ought to be Toady Extraordinary to the Court of +St. Bridget or Head Porter of the Island of Porto Rico. I'm going to +see about it." + +"'Then this lady,' I says to Andy, 'moves against the authorities at +Washington with her baggage and munitions, consisting of five dozen +indiscriminating letters written to her by a member of the Cabinet +when she was 15; a letter of introduction from King Leopold to the +Smithsonian Institution, and a pink silk costume with canary colored +spats. + +"'Well and then what?' I goes. 'She has the letters printed in the +evening papers that match her costume, she lectures at an informal +tea given in the palm room of the B. & O. Depot and then calls on the +President. The ninth Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the +first aide-de-camp of the Blue Room and an unidentified colored man +are waiting there to grasp her by the hands--and feet. They carry her +out to S.W. B. street and leave her on a cellar door. That ends it. +The next time we hear of her she is writing postcards to the Chinese +Minister asking him to get Arthur a job in a tea store.' + +"'Then,' says Andy, 'you don't think Mrs. Avery will land the +Marshalship for Bill?' + +"'I do not,' says I. 'I do not wish to be a septic, but I doubt if +she can do as well as you and me could have done.' + +"'I don't agree with you,' says Andy. 'I'll bet you she does. I'm +proud of having a higher opinion of the talent and the powers of +negotiation of ladies.' + +"We was back at Mrs. Avery's hotel at the time she appointed. She was +looking pretty and fine enough, as far as that went, to make any man +let her name every officer in the country. But I hadn't much faith in +looks, so I was certainly surprised when she pulls out a document with +the great seal of the United States on it, and 'William Henry Humble' +in a fine, big hand on the back. + +"'You might have had it the next day, boys,' says Mrs. Avery, smiling. +'I hadn't the slightest trouble in getting it,' says she. 'I just +asked for it, that's all. Now, I'd like to talk to you a while,' she +goes on, 'but I'm awfully busy, and I know you'll excuse me. I've got +an Ambassadorship, two Consulates and a dozen other minor applications +to look after. I can hardly find time to sleep at all. You'll give my +compliments to Mr. Humble when you get home, of course.' + +"Well, I handed her the $500, which she pitched into her desk drawer +without counting. I put Bill's appointment in my pocket and me and +Andy made our adieus. + +"We started back for the Territory the same day. We wired Bill: 'Job +landed; get the tall glasses ready,' and we felt pretty good. + +"Andy joshed me all the way about how little I knew about women. + +"'All right,' says I. 'I'll admit that she surprised me. But it's the +first time I ever knew one of 'em to manipulate a piece of business on +time without getting it bungled up in some way,' says I. + +"Down about the edge of Arkansas I got out Bill's appointment and +looked it over, and then I handed it to Andy to read. Andy read it, +but didn't add any remarks to my silence. + +"The paper was for Bill, all right, and a genuine document, but it +appointed him postmaster of Dade City, Fla. + +"Me and Andy got off the train at Little Rock and sent Bill's +appointment to him by mail. Then we struck northeast toward Lake +Superior. + +"I never saw Bill Humble after that." + + + + +THE EXACT SCIENCE OF MATRIMONY + + +"As I have told you before," said Jeff Peters, "I never had much +confidence in the perfidiousness of woman. As partners or coeducators +in the most innocent line of graft they are not trustworthy." + +"They deserve the compliment," said I. "I think they are entitled to +be called the honest sex." + +"Why shouldn't they be?" said Jeff. "They've got the other sex either +grafting or working overtime for 'em. They're all right in business +until they get their emotions or their hair touched up too much. +Then you want to have a flat footed, heavy breathing man with sandy +whiskers, five kids and a building and loan mortgage ready as an +understudy to take her desk. Now there was that widow lady that me +and Andy Tucker engaged to help us in that little matrimonial agency +scheme we floated out in Cairo. + +"When you've got enough advertising capital--say a roll as big as the +little end of a wagon tongue--there's money in matrimonial agencies. +We had about $6,000 and we expected to double it in two months, which +is about as long as a scheme like ours can be carried on without +taking out a New Jersey charter. + +"We fixed up an advertisement that read about like this: + + + "Charming widow, beautiful, home loving, 32 years, possessing + $3,000 cash and owning valuable country property, would remarry. + Would prefer a poor man with affectionate disposition to one with + means, as she realizes that the solid virtues are oftenest to be + found in the humble walks of life. No objection to elderly man + or one of homely appearance if faithful and true and competent + to manage property and invest money with judgment. Address, with + particulars. + + Lonely, + Care of Peters & Tucker, agents, Cairo, Ill. + + +"'So far, so pernicious,' says I, when we had finished the literary +concoction. 'And now,' says I, 'where is the lady.' + +"Andy gives me one of his looks of calm irritation. + +"'Jeff,' says he, 'I thought you had lost them ideas of realism in +your art. Why should there be a lady? When they sell a lot of watered +stock on Wall Street would you expect to find a mermaid in it? What +has a matrimonial ad got to do with a lady?' + +"'Now listen,' says I. 'You know my rule, Andy, that in all my +illegitimate inroads against the legal letter of the law the article +sold must be existent, visible, producible. In that way and by a +careful study of city ordinances and train schedules I have kept out +of all trouble with the police that a five dollar bill and a cigar +could not square. Now, to work this scheme we've got to be able to +produce bodily a charming widow or its equivalent with or without the +beauty, hereditaments and appurtenances set forth in the catalogue and +writ of errors, or hereafter be held by a justice of the peace.' + +"'Well,' says Andy, reconstructing his mind, 'maybe it would be +safer in case the post office or the peace commission should try to +investigate our agency. But where,' he says, 'could you hope to find +a widow who would waste time on a matrimonial scheme that had no +matrimony in it?' + +"I told Andy that I thought I knew of the exact party. An old friend +of mine, Zeke Trotter, who used to draw soda water and teeth in a +tent show, had made his wife a widow a year before by drinking some +dyspepsia cure of the old doctor's instead of the liniment that he +always got boozed up on. I used to stop at their house often, and I +thought we could get her to work with us. + +"'Twas only sixty miles to the little town where she lived, so I +jumped out on the I. C. and finds her in the same cottage with the +same sunflowers and roosters standing on the washtub. Mrs. Trotter +fitted our ad first rate except, maybe for beauty and age and property +valuation. But she looked feasible and praiseworthy to the eye, and it +was a kindness to Zeke's memory to give her the job. + +"'Is this an honest deal you are putting on, Mr. Peters,' she asks me +when I tell her what we want. + +"'Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'Andy Tucker and me have computed the +calculation that 3,000 men in this broad and unfair country will +endeavor to secure your fair hand and ostensible money and property +through our advertisement. Out of that number something like thirty +hundred will expect to give you in exchange, if they should win you, +the carcass of a lazy and mercenary loafer, a failure in life, a +swindler and contemptible fortune seeker. + +"'Me and Andy,' says I, 'propose to teach these preyers upon society +a lesson. It was with difficulty,' says I, 'that me and Andy could +refrain from forming a corporation under the title of the Great Moral +and Millennial Malevolent Matrimonial Agency. Does that satisfy you?' + +"'It does, Mr. Peters,' says she. 'I might have known you wouldn't +have gone into anything that wasn't opprobrious. But what will my +duties be? Do I have to reject personally these 3,000 ramscallions you +speak of, or can I throw them out in bunches?' + +"'Your job, Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'will be practically a cynosure. +You will live at a quiet hotel and will have no work to do. Andy and I +will attend to all the correspondence and business end of it. + +"'Of course,' says I, 'some of the more ardent and impetuous suitors +who can raise the railroad fare may come to Cairo to personally press +their suit or whatever fraction of a suit they may be wearing. In that +case you will be probably put to the inconvenience of kicking them out +face to face. We will pay you $25 per week and hotel expenses.' + +"'Give me five minutes,' says Mrs. Trotter, 'to get my powder rag and +leave the front door key with a neighbor and you can let my salary +begin.' + +"So I conveys Mrs. Trotter to Cairo and establishes her in a family +hotel far enough away from mine and Andy's quarters to be unsuspicious +and available, and I tell Andy. + +"'Great,' says Andy. 'And now that your conscience is appeased as to +the tangibility and proximity of the bait, and leaving mutton aside, +suppose we revenoo a noo fish.' + +"So, we began to insert our advertisement in newspapers covering +the country far and wide. One ad was all we used. We couldn't have +used more without hiring so many clerks and marcelled paraphernalia +that the sound of the gum chewing would have disturbed the +Postmaster-General. + +"We placed $2,000 in a bank to Mrs. Trotter's credit and gave her the +book to show in case anybody might question the honesty and good faith +of the agency. I knew Mrs. Trotter was square and reliable and it was +safe to leave it in her name. + +"With that one ad Andy and me put in twelve hours a day answering +letters. + +"About one hundred a day was what came in. I never knew there was so +many large hearted but indigent men in the country who were willing to +acquire a charming widow and assume the burden of investing her money. + + +[Illustration: "About 100 a day was what came in."] + + +"Most of them admitted that they ran principally to whiskers and lost +jobs and were misunderstood by the world, but all of 'em were sure +that they were so chock full of affection and manly qualities that the +widow would be making the bargain of her life to get 'em. + +"Every applicant got a reply from Peters & Tucker informing him +that the widow had been deeply impressed by his straightforward and +interesting letter and requesting them to write again; stating more +particulars; and enclosing photograph if convenient. Peters & Tucker +also informed the applicant that their fee for handing over the second +letter to their fair client would be $2, enclosed therewith. + +"There you see the simple beauty of the scheme. About 90 per cent. of +them domestic foreign noblemen raised the price somehow and sent it +in. That was all there was to it. Except that me and Andy complained +an amount about being put to the trouble of slicing open them +envelopes, and taking the money out. + +"Some few clients called in person. We sent 'em to Mrs. Trotter and +she did the rest; except for three or four who came back to strike +us for carfare. After the letters began to get in from the r.f.d. +districts Andy and me were taking in about $200 a day. + +"One afternoon when we were busiest and I was stuffing the two and +ones into cigar boxes and Andy was whistling 'No Wedding Bells for +Her' a small slick man drops in and runs his eye over the walls like +he was on the trail of a lost Gainesborough painting or two. As soon +as I saw him I felt a glow of pride, because we were running our +business on the level. + +"'I see you have quite a large mail to-day,' says the man. + +"I reached and got my hat. + +"'Come on,' says I. 'We've been expecting you. I'll show you the +goods. How was Teddy when you left Washington?' + +"I took him down to the Riverview Hotel and had him shake hands with +Mrs. Trotter. Then I showed him her bank book with the $2,000 to her +credit. + +"'It seems to be all right,' says the Secret Service. + +"'It is,' says I. 'And if you're not a married man I'll leave you to +talk a while with the lady. We won't mention the two dollars.' + +"'Thanks,' says he. 'If I wasn't, I might. Good day, Mrs. Peters.' + +"Toward the end of three months we had taken in something over $5,000, +and we saw it was time to quit. We had a good many complaints made +to us; and Mrs. Trotter seemed to be tired of the job. A good many +suitors had been calling to see her, and she didn't seem to like that. + +"So we decides to pull out, and I goes down to Mrs. Trotter's hotel to +pay her last week's salary and say farewell and get her check for the +$2,000. + +"When I got there I found her crying like a kid that don't want to go +to school. + +"'Now, now,' says I, 'what's it all about? Somebody sassed you or you +getting homesick?' + +"'No, Mr. Peters,' says she. 'I'll tell you. You was always a friend +of Zeke's, and I don't mind. Mr. Peters, I'm in love. I just love a +man so hard I can't bear not to get him. He's just the ideal I've +always had in mind.' + + +[Illustration: "'Mr. Peters, I'm in love.'"] + + +"'Then take him,' says I. 'That is, if it's a mutual case. Does he +return the sentiment according to the specifications and painfulness +you have described?' + +"'He does,' says she. 'But he's one of the gentlemen that's been +coming to see me about the advertisement and he won't marry me unless +I give him the $2,000. His name is William Wilkinson.' And then she +goes off again in the agitations and hysterics of romance. + +"'Mrs. Trotter,' says I, 'there's no man more sympathizing with a +woman's affections than I am. Besides, you was once the life partner +of one of my best friends. If it was left to me I'd say take this +$2,000 and the man of your choice and be happy. + +"'We could afford to do that, because we have cleaned up over $5,000 +from these suckers that wanted to marry you. But,' says I, 'Andy +Tucker is to be consulted. + +"'He is a good man, but keen in business. He is my equal partner +financially. I will talk to Andy,' says I, 'and see what can be done.' + +"I goes back to our hotel and lays the case before Andy. + +"'I was expecting something like this all the time,' says Andy. 'You +can't trust a woman to stick by you in any scheme that involves her +emotions and preferences.' + +"'It's a sad thing, Andy,' says I, 'to think that we've been the cause +of the breaking of a woman's heart.' + +"'It is,' says Andy, 'and I tell you what I'm willing to do, Jeff. +You've always been a man of a soft and generous heart and disposition. +Perhaps I've been too hard and worldly and suspicious. For once I'll +meet you half way. Go to Mrs. Trotter and tell her to draw the $2,000 +from the bank and give it to this man she's infatuated with and be +happy.' + +"I jumps up and shakes Andy's hand for five minutes, and then I goes +back to Mrs. Trotter and tells her, and she cries as hard for joy as +she did for sorrow. + +"Two days afterward me and Andy packed up to go. + +"'Wouldn't you like to go down and meet Mrs. Trotter once before we +leave?' I asks him. 'She'd like mightily to know you and express her +encomiums and gratitude.' + +"'Why, I guess not,' says Andy. 'I guess we'd better hurry and catch +that train.' + +"I was strapping our capital around me in a memory belt like we always +carried it, when Andy pulls a roll of large bills out of his pocket +and asks me to put 'em with the rest. + +"'What's this?' says I. + + +[Illustration: "'What's this?' says I."] + + +"'It's Mrs. Trotter's two thousand,' says Andy. + +"'How do you come to have it?' I asks. + +"'She gave it to me,' says Andy. 'I've been calling on her three +evenings a week for more than a month.' + +"'Then are you William Wilkinson?' says I. + +"'I was,' says Andy." + + + + +A MIDSUMMER MASQUERADE + + +"Satan," said Jeff Peters, "is a hard boss to work for. When other +people are having their vacation is when he keeps you the busiest. As +old Dr. Watts or St. Paul or some other diagnostician says: 'He always +finds somebody for idle hands to do.' + +"I remember one summer when me and my partner, Andy Tucker, tried to +take a layoff from our professional and business duties; but it seems +that our work followed us wherever we went. + +"Now, with a preacher it's different. He can throw off his +responsibilities and enjoy himself. On the 31st of May he wraps +mosquito netting and tin foil around the pulpit, grabs his niblick, +breviary and fishing pole and hikes for Lake Como or Atlantic City +according to the size of the loudness with which he has been called by +his congregation. And, sir, for three months he don't have to think +about business except to hunt around in Deuteronomy and Proverbs and +Timothy to find texts to cover and exculpate such little midsummer +penances as dropping a couple of looey door on rouge or teaching a +Presbyterian widow to swim. + +"But I was going to tell you about mine and Andy's summer vacation +that wasn't one. + +"We was tired of finance and all the branches of unsanctified +ingenuity. Even Andy, whose brain rarely ever stopped working, began +to make noises like a tennis cabinet. + +"'Heigh ho!' says Andy. 'I'm tired. I've got that steam up the yacht +Corsair and ho for the Riviera! feeling. I want to loaf and indict my +soul, as Walt Whittier says. I want to play pinochle with Merry del +Val or give a knouting to the tenants on my Tarrytown estates or do +a monologue at a Chautauqua picnic in kilts or something summery and +outside the line of routine and sand-bagging.' + +"'Patience,' says I. 'You'll have to climb higher in the profession +before you can taste the laurels that crown the footprints of the +great captains of industry. Now, what I'd like, Andy,' says I, 'would +be a summer sojourn in a mountain village far from scenes of larceny, +labor and overcapitalization. I'm tired, too, and a month or so of +sinlessness ought to leave us in good shape to begin again to take +away the white man's burdens in the fall.' + +"Andy fell in with the rest cure at once, so we struck the general +passenger agents of all the railroads for summer resort literature, +and took a week to study out where we should go. I reckon the first +passenger agent in the world was that man Genesis. But there wasn't +much competition in his day, and when he said: 'The Lord made the +earth in six days, and all very good,' he hadn't any idea to what +extent the press agents of the summer hotels would plagiarize from +him later on. + +"When we finished the booklets we perceived, easy, that the United +States from Passadumkeg, Maine, to El Paso, and from Skagway to Key +West was a paradise of glorious mountain peaks, crystal lakes, new +laid eggs, golf, girls, garages, cooling breezes, straw rides, open +plumbing and tennis; and all within two hours' ride. + +"So me and Andy dumps the books out the back window and packs our +trunk and takes the 6 o'clock Tortoise Flyer for Crow Knob, a kind of +a dernier resort in the mountains on the line of Tennessee and North +Carolina. + + +[Illustration: "Dumps the books out of the back window."] + + +"We was directed to a kind of private hotel called Woodchuck Inn, and +thither me and Andy bent and almost broke our footsteps over the rocks +and stumps. The Inn set back from the road in a big grove of trees, +and it looked fine with its broad porches and a lot of women in white +dresses rocking in the shade. The rest of Crow Knob was a post office +and some scenery set an angle of forty-five degrees and a welkin. + +"Well, sir, when we got to the gate who do you suppose comes down +the walk to greet us? Old Smoke-'em-out Smithers, who used to be the +best open air painless dentist and electric liver pad faker in the +Southwest. + +"Old Smoke-'em-out is dressed clerico-rural, and has the mingled air +of a landlord and a claim jumper. Which aspect he corroborates by +telling us that he is the host and perpetrator of Woodchuck Inn. I +introduces Andy, and we talk about a few volatile topics, such as will +go around at meetings of boards of directors and old associates like +us three were. Old Smoke-'em-out leads us into a kind of summer house +in the yard near the gate and took up the harp of life and smote on +all the chords with his mighty right. + +"'Gents,' says he, 'I'm glad to see you. Maybe you can help me out +of a scrape. I'm getting a bit old for street work, so I leased this +dogdays emporium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before +the season opened I gets a letter signed Lieut. Peary and one from +the Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the +summer. + +"'Well, sir, you gents know what a big thing for an obscure hustlery +it would be to have for guests two gentlemen whose names are famous +from long association with icebergs and the Coburgs. So I prints a +lot of handbills announcing that Woodchuck Inn would shelter these +distinguished boarders during the summer, except in places where it +leaked, and I sends 'em out to towns around as far as Knoxville and +Charlotte and Fish Dam and Bowling Green. + +"'And now look up there on the porch, gents,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'at +them disconsolate specimens of their fair sex waiting for the arrival +of the Duke and the Lieutenant. The house is packed from rafters to +cellar with hero worshippers. + +"'There's four normal school teachers and two abnormal; there's three +high school graduates between 37 and 42; there's two literary old +maids and one that can write; there's a couple of society women and +a lady from Haw River. Two elocutionists are bunking in the corn +crib, and I've put cots in the hay loft for the cook and the society +editress of the Chattanooga _Opera Glass_. You see how names draw, +gents.' + +"'Well,' says I, 'how is it that you seem to be biting your thumbs at +good luck? You didn't use to be that way.' + +"'I ain't through,' says Smoke-'em-out. 'Yesterday was the day for +the advent of the auspicious personages. I goes down to the depot to +welcome 'em. Two apparently animate substances gets off the train, +both carrying bags full of croquet mallets and these magic lanterns +with pushbuttons. + +"I compares these integers with the original signatures to the letters +--and, well, gents, I reckon the mistake was due to my poor eyesight. +Instead of being the Lieutenant, the daisy chain and wild verbena +explorer was none other than Levi T. Peevy, a soda water clerk from +Asheville. And the Duke of Marlborough turned out to be Theo. Drake of +Murfreesborough, a bookkeeper in a grocery. What did I do? I kicked +'em both back on the train and watched 'em depart for the lowlands, +the low. + + +[Illustration: Instead of the Lieut. and the Duke.] + + +"'Now you see the fix I'm in, gents,' goes on Smoke-'em-out Smithers. +'I told the ladies that the notorious visitors had been detained on +the road by some unavoidable circumstances that made a noise like an +ice jam and an heiress, but they would arrive a day or two later. When +they find out that they've been deceived,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'every +yard of cross barred muslin and natural waved switch in the house will +pack up and leave. It's a hard deal,' says old Smoke-'em-out. + +"'Friend,' says Andy, touching the old man on the aesophagus, 'why +this jeremiad when the polar regions and the portals of Blenheim are +conspiring to hand you prosperity on a hall-marked silver salver. We +have arrived.' + +"A light breaks out on Smoke-'em-out's face. + +"'Can you do it, gents?' he asks. 'Could ye do it? Could ye play the +polar man and the little duke for the nice ladies? Will ye do it?' + + +[Illustration: "'Can ye do it, gents?' he asks."] + + +"I see that Andy is superimposed with his old hankering for the oral +and polyglot system of buncoing. That man had a vocabulary of about +10,000 words and synonyms, which arrayed themselves into contraband +sophistries and parables when they came out. + +"'Listen,' says Andy to old Smoke-'em-out. 'Can we do it? You behold +before you, Mr. Smithers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for +inveigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight-of-hand +or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, explorers go and get lost, +but me and Jeff Peters,' says Andy, 'go after the come-ons forever. If +you say so, we're the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And +you'll find,' says Andy, 'that we'll give you the true local color of +the title roles from the aurora borealis to the ducal portcullis.' + +"Old Smoke-'em-out is delighted. He takes me and Andy up to the inn by +an arm apiece, telling us on the way that the finest fruits of the can +and luxuries of the fast freights should be ours without price as long +as we would stay. + +"On the porch Smoke-'em-out says: 'Ladies, I have the honor to +introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marlborough and the famous +inventor of the North Pole, Lieut. Peary.' + +"The skirts all flutter and the rocking chairs squeak as me and Andy +bows and then goes on in with old Smoke-'em-out to register. And then +we washed up and turned our cuffs, and the landlord took us to the +rooms he'd been saving for us and got out a demijohn of North Carolina +real mountain dew. + +"I expected trouble when Andy began to drink. He has the artistic +metempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on +airships when stimulated. + +"After lingering with the demijohn me and Andy goes out on the porch, +where the ladies are to begin to earn our keep. We sit in two special +chairs and then the schoolma'ams and literaterrers hunched their +rockers close around us. + +"One lady says to me: 'How did that last venture of yours turn out, +sir?' + +"Now, I'd clean forgot to have an understanding with Andy which I +was to be, the duke or the lieutenant. And I couldn't tell from +her question whether she was referring to Arctic or matrimonial +expeditions. So I gave an answer that would cover both cases. + +"'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'it was a freeze out--right smart of a freeze +out, ma'am.' + +"And then the flood gates of Andy's perorations was opened and I knew +which one of the renowned ostensible guests I was supposed to be. I +wasn't either. Andy was both. And still furthermore it seemed that +he was trying to be the mouthpiece of the whole British nobility and +of Arctic exploration from Sir John Franklin down. It was the union +of corn whiskey and the conscientious fictional form that Mr. W. D. +Howletts admires so much. + +"'Ladies,' says Andy, smiling semicircularly, 'I am truly glad to +visit America. I do not consider the magna charta,' says he, 'or gas +balloons or snow-shoes in any way a detriment to the beauty and charm +of your American women, skyscrapers or the architecture of your +icebergs. The next time,' says Andy, 'that I go after the North Pole +all the Vanderbilts in Greenland won't be able to turn me out in the +cold--I mean make it hot for me.' + +"'Tell us about one of your trips, Lieutenant,' says one of the +normals. + +"'Sure,' says Andy, getting the decision over a hiccup. 'It was in +the spring of last year that I sailed the Castle of Blenheim up to +latitude 87 degrees Fahrenheit and beat the record. Ladies,' says +Andy, 'it was a sad sight to see a Duke allied by a civil and +liturgical chattel mortgage to one of your first families lost in a +region of semiannual days.' And then he goes on, 'At four bells we +sighted Westminster Abbey, but there was not a drop to eat. At noon we +threw out five sandbags, and the ship rose fifteen knots higher. At +midnight,' continues Andy, 'the restaurants closed. Sitting on a cake +of ice we ate seven hot dogs. All around us was snow and ice. Six +times a night the boatswain rose up and tore a leaf off the calendar, +so we could keep time with the barometer. At 12,' says Andy, with a +lot of anguish on his face, 'three huge polar bears sprang down the +hatchway, into the cabin. And then--' + +"'What then, Lieutenant?' says a schoolma'am, excitedly. + +"Andy gives a loud sob. + +"'The Duchess shook me,' he cries out, and slides out of the chair and +weeps on the porch. + +"Well, of course, that fixed the scheme. The women boarders all left +the next morning. The landlord wouldn't speak to us for two days, but +when he found we had money to pay our way he loosened up. + +"So me and Andy had a quiet, restful summer after all, coming away +from Crow Knob with $1,100, that we enticed out of old Smoke-'em-out +playing seven up." + + + + +SHEARING THE WOLF + + +Jeff Peters was always eloquent when the ethics of his profession was +under discussion. + +"The only times," said he, "that me and Andy Tucker ever had any +hiatuses in our cordial intents was when we differed on the moral +aspects of grafting. Andy had his standards and I had mine. I didn't +approve of all of Andy's schemes for levying contributions from the +public, and he thought I allowed my conscience to interfere too often +for the financial good of the firm. We had high arguments sometimes. +One word led on to another till he said I reminded him of Rockefeller. + +"'I don't know how you mean that, Andy,' says I, 'but we have been +friends too long for me to take offense at a taunt that you will +regret when you cool off. I have yet,' says I, 'to shake hands with +a subpoena server.' + +"One summer me and Andy decided to rest up a spell in a fine little +town in the mountains of Kentucky called Grassdale. We was supposed to +be horse drovers, and good decent citizens besides, taking a summer +vacation. The Grassdale people liked us, and me and Andy declared a +cessation of hostilities, never so much as floating the fly leaf of a +rubber concession prospectus or flashing a Brazilian diamond while we +was there. + +"One day the leading hardware merchant of Grassdale drops around to +the hotel where me and Andy stopped, and smokes with us, sociable, on +the side porch. We knew him pretty well from pitching quoits in the +afternoons in the court house yard. He was a loud, red man, breathing +hard, but fat and respectable beyond all reason. + + +[Illustration: "Pitching quoits in the afternoon in the court house +yard."] + + +"After we talk on all the notorious themes of the day, this Murkison-- +for such was his entitlements--takes a letter out of his coat pocket +in a careful, careless way and hands it to us to read. + +"'Now, what do you think of that?' says he, laughing--'a letter like +that to ME!' + +"Me and Andy sees at a glance what it is; but we pretend to read it +through. It was one of them old time typewritten green goods letters +explaining how for $1,000 you could get $5,000 in bills that an expert +couldn't tell from the genuine; and going on to tell how they were +made from plates stolen by an employee of the Treasury at Washington. + +"'Think of 'em sending a letter like that to ME!' says Murkison again. + + +[Illustration: "'Think of 'em sending a letter like that to ME!'"] + + +"'Lot's of good men get 'em,' says Andy. 'If you don't answer the +first letter they let you drop. If you answer it they write again +asking you to come on with your money and do business.' + +"'But think of 'em writing to ME!' says Murkison. + +"A few days later he drops around again. + +"'Boys,' says he, 'I know you are all right or I wouldn't confide in +you. I wrote to them rascals again just for fun. They answered and +told me to come on to Chicago. They said telegraph to J. Smith when I +would start. When I get there I'm to wait on a certain street corner +till a man in a gray suit comes along and drops a newspaper in front +of me. Then I am to ask him how the water is, and he knows it's me and +I know it's him.' + +"'Ah, yes,' says Andy, gaping, 'it's the same old game. I've often +read about it in the papers. Then he conducts you to the private +abattoir in the hotel, where Mr. Jones is already waiting. They show +you brand new real money and sell you all you want at five for one. +You see 'em put it in a satchel for you and know it's there. Of course +it's brown paper when you come to look at it afterward.' + + +[Illustration: "'Of course, it's brown paper.'"] + + +"'Oh, they couldn't switch it on me,' says Murkison. 'I haven't built +up the best paying business in Grassdale without having witticisms +about me. You say it's real money they show you, Mr. Tucker?' + +"'I've always--I see by the papers that it always is,' says Andy. + +"'Boys,' says Murkison, 'I've got it in my mind that them fellows +can't fool me. I think I'll put a couple of thousand in my jeans and +go up there and put it all over 'em. If Bill Murkison gets his eyes +once on them bills they show him he'll never take 'em off of 'em. They +offer $5 for $1, and they'll have to stick to the bargain if I tackle +'em. That's the kind of trader Bill Murkison is. Yes, I jist believe +I'll drop up Chicago way and take a 5 to 1 shot on J. Smith. I guess +the water'll be fine enough.' + +"Me and Andy tries to get this financial misquotation out of +Murkison's head, but we might as well have tried to keep the man who +rolls peanuts with a toothpick from betting on Bryan's election. No, +sir; he was going to perform a public duty by catching these green +goods swindlers at their own game. Maybe it would teach 'em a lesson. + +"After Murkison left us me and Andy sat a while prepondering over our +silent meditations and heresies of reason. In our idle hours we always +improved our higher selves by ratiocination and mental thought. + +"'Jeff,' says Andy after a long time, 'quite unseldom I have seen fit +to impugn your molars when you have been chewing the rag with me about +your conscientious way of doing business. I may have been often wrong. +But here is a case where I think we can agree. I feel that it would be +wrong for us to allow Mr. Murkison to go alone to meet those Chicago +green goods men. There is but one way it can end. Don't you think we +would both feel better if we was to intervene in some way and prevent +the doing of this deed?' + +"I got up and shook Andy Tucker's hand hard and long. + +"'Andy,' says I, 'I may have had one or two hard thoughts about the +heartlessness of your corporation, but I retract 'em now. You have a +kind nucleus at the interior of your exterior after all. It does you +credit. I was just thinking the same thing that you have expressed. +It would not be honorable or praiseworthy,' says I, 'for us to let +Murkison go on with this project he has taken up. If he is determined +to go let us go with him and prevent this swindle from coming off.' + +"Andy agreed with me; and I was glad to see that he was in earnest +about breaking up this green goods scheme. + +"'I don't call myself a religious man,' says I, 'or a fanatic in +moral bigotry, but I can't stand still and see a man who has built +up his business by his own efforts and brains and risk be robbed by +an unscrupulous trickster who is a menace to the public good.' + +"'Right, Jeff,' says Andy. 'We'll stick right along with Murkison if +he insists on going and block this funny business. I'd hate to see any +money dropped in it as bad as you would.' + +"Well, we went to see Murkison. + +"'No, boys,' says he. 'I can't consent to let the song of this Chicago +siren waft by me on the summer breeze. I'll fry some fat out of this +ignis fatuus or burn a hole in the skillet. But I'd be plumb diverted +to death to have you all go along with me. Maybe you could help some +when it comes to cashing in the ticket to that 5 to 1 shot. Yes, I'd +really take it as a pastime and regalement if you boys would go along +too.' + +"Murkison gives it out in Grassdale that he is going for a few days +with Mr. Peters and Mr. Tucker to look over some iron ore property in +West Virginia. He wires J. Smith that he will set foot in the spider +web on a given date; and the three of us lights out for Chicago. + +"On the way Murkison amuses himself with premonitions and advance +pleasant recollections. + +"'In a gray suit,' says he, 'on the southwest corner of Wabash avenue +and Lake street. He drops the paper, and I ask how the water is. Oh, +my, my, my!' And then he laughs all over for five minutes. + +"Sometimes Murkison was serious and tried to talk himself out of his +cogitations, whatever they was. + +"'Boys,' says he, 'I wouldn't have this to get out in Grassdale for +ten times a thousand dollars. It would ruin me there. But I know you +all are all right. I think it's the duty of every citizen,' says he, +'to try to do up these robbers that prey upon the public. I'll show +'em whether the water's fine. Five dollars for one--that's what J. +Smith offers, and he'll have to keep his contract if he does business +with Bill Murkison.' + +"We got into Chicago about 7 P.M. Murkison was to meet the gray man at +half past 9. We had dinner at a hotel and then went up to Murkison's +room to wait for the time to come. + +"'Now, boys,' says Murkison, 'let's get our gumption together and +inoculate a plan for defeating the enemy. Suppose while I'm exchanging +airy bandage with the gray capper you gents come along, by accident, +you know, and holler: "Hello, Murk!" and shake hands with symptoms of +surprise and familiarity. Then I take the capper aside and tell him +you all are Jenkins and Brown of Grassdale, groceries and feed, good +men and maybe willing to take a chance while away from home.' + +"'"Bring 'em along," he'll say, of course, "if they care to invest." +Now, how does that scheme strike you?' + +"'What do you say, Jeff?' says Andy, looking at me. + +"'Why, I'll tell you what I say,' says I. 'I say let's settle this +thing right here now. I don't see any use of wasting any more time.' I +took a nickel-plated .38 out of my pocket and clicked the cylinder +around a few times. + +"'You undevout, sinful, insidious hog,' says I to Murkison, 'get out +that two thousand and lay it on the table. Obey with velocity,' says +I, 'for otherwise alternatives are impending. I am preferably a man of +mildness, but now and then I find myself in the middle of extremities. +Such men as you,' I went on after he had laid the money out, 'is what +keeps the jails and court houses going. You come up here to rob these +men of their money. Does it excuse you?' I asks, 'that they were +trying to skin you? No, sir; you was going to rob Peter to stand off +Paul. You are ten times worse,' says I, 'than that green goods man. +You go to church at home and pretend to be a decent citizen, but +you'll come to Chicago and commit larceny from men that have built +up a sound and profitable business by dealing with such contemptible +scoundrels as you have tried to be to-day. How do you know,' says I, +'that that green goods man hasn't a large family dependent upon his +extortions? It's you supposedly respectable citizens who are always +on the lookout to get something for nothing,' says I, 'that support +the lotteries and wild-cat mines and stock exchanges and wire tappers +of this country. If it wasn't for you they'd go out of business. +The green goods man you was going to rob,' says I, 'studied maybe +for years to learn his trade. Every turn he makes he risks his money +and liberty and maybe his life. You come up here all sanctified and +vanoplied with respectability and a pleasing post office address to +swindle him. If he gets the money you can squeal to the police. If +you get it he hocks the gray suit to buy supper and says nothing. Mr. +Tucker and me sized you up,' says I, 'and came along to see that you +got what you deserved. Hand over the money,' says I, 'you grass fed +hypocrite.' + +"I put the two thousand, which was all in $20 bills, in my inside +pocket. + +"'Now get out your watch,' says I to Murkison. 'No, I don't want +it,' says I. 'Lay it on the table and you sit in that chair till it +ticks off an hour. Then you can go. If you make any noise or leave +any sooner we'll handbill you all over Grassdale. I guess your high +position there is worth more than $2,000 to you.' + +"Then me and Andy left. + +"On the train Andy was a long time silent. Then he says: 'Jeff, do you +mind my asking you a question?' + +"'Two,' says I, 'or forty.' + +"'Was that the idea you had,' says he, 'when we started out with +Murkison?' + +"'Why, certainly,' says I. 'What else could it have been? Wasn't it +yours, too?' + +"In about half an hour Andy spoke again. I think there are times when +Andy don't exactly understand my system of ethics and moral hygiene. + +"'Jeff,' says he, 'some time when you have the leisure I wish you'd +draw off a diagram and foot-notes of that conscience of yours. I'd +like to have it to refer to occasionally.'" + + + + +INNOCENTS OF BROADWAY + + +"I hope some day to retire from business," said Jeff Peters; "and when +I do I don't want anybody to be able to say that I ever got a dollar +of any man's money without giving him a quid pro rata for it. I've +always managed to leave a customer some little gewgaw to paste in his +scrapbook or stick between his Seth Thomas clock and the wall after we +are through trading. + +"There was one time I came near having to break this rule of mine and +do a profligate and illaudable action, but I was saved from it by the +laws and statutes of our great and profitable country. + +"One summer me and Andy Tucker, my partner, went to New York to lay in +our annual assortment of clothes and gents' furnishings. We was always +pompous and regardless dressers, finding that looks went further than +anything else in our business, except maybe our knowledge of railroad +schedules and an autograph photo of the President that Loeb sent us, +probably by mistake. Andy wrote a nature letter once and sent it in +about animals that he had seen caught in a trap lots of times. Loeb +must have read it 'triplets,' instead of 'trap lots,' and sent the +photo. Anyhow, it was useful to us to show people as a guarantee of +good faith. + +"Me and Andy never cared much to do business in New York. It was +too much like pothunting. Catching suckers in that town is like +dynamiting a Texas lake for bass. All you have to do anywhere between +the North and East rivers is to stand in the street with an open bag +marked, 'Drop packages of money here. No checks or loose bills taken.' +You have a cop handy to club pikers who try to chip in post office +orders and Canadian money, and that's all there is to New York for a +hunter who loves his profession. So me and Andy used to just nature +fake the town. We'd get out our spyglasses and watch the woodcocks +along the Broadway swamps putting plaster casts on their broken legs, +and then we'd sneak away without firing a shot. + +"One day in the papier mache palm room of a chloral hydrate and hops +agency in a side street about eight inches off Broadway me and Andy +had thrust upon us the acquaintance of a New Yorker. We had beer +together until we discovered that each of us knew a man named +Hellsmith, traveling for a stove factory in Duluth. This caused us to +remark that the world was a very small place, and then this New Yorker +busts his string and takes off his tin foil and excelsior packing and +starts in giving us his Ellen Terris, beginning with the time he used +to sell shoelaces to the Indians on the spot where Tammany Hall now +stands. + +"This New Yorker had made his money keeping a cigar store in Beekman +street, and he hadn't been above Fourteenth street in ten years. +Moreover, he had whiskers, and the time had gone by when a true sport +will do anything to a man with whiskers. No grafter except a boy who +is soliciting subscribers to an illustrated weekly to win the prize +air rifle, or a widow, would have the heart to tamper with the man +behind with the razor. He was a typical city Reub--I'd bet the man +hadn't been out of sight of a skyscraper in twenty-five years. + +"Well, presently this metropolitan backwoodsman pulls out a roll of +bills with an old blue sleeve elastic fitting tight around it and +opens it up. + +"'There's $5,000, Mr. Peters,' says he, shoving it over the table +to me, 'saved during my fifteen years of business. Put that in your +pocket and keep it for me, Mr. Peters. I'm glad to meet you gentlemen +from the West, and I may take a drop too much. I want you to take care +of my money for me. Now, let's have another beer.' + + +[Illustration: "'I want you to take care of my money for me.'"] + + +"'You'd better keep this yourself,' says I. 'We are strangers to +you, and you can't trust everybody you meet. Put your roll back in +your pocket,' says I. 'And you'd better run along home before some +farm-hand from the Kaw River bottoms strolls in here and sells you +a copper mine.' + +"'Oh, I don't know,' says Whiskers. 'I guess Little Old New York can +take care of herself. I guess I know a man that's on the square when I +see him. I've always found the Western people all right. I ask you as +a favor, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'to keep that roll in your pocket for +me. I know a gentleman when I see him. And now let's have some more +beer.' + +"In about ten minutes this fall of manna leans back in his chair and +snores. Andy looks at me and says: 'I reckon I'd better stay with him +for five minutes or so, in case the waiter comes in.' + +"I went out the side door and walked half a block up the street. And +then I came back and sat down at the table. + +"'Andy,' says I, 'I can't do it. It's too much like swearing off +taxes. I can't go off with this man's money without doing something to +earn it like taking advantage of the Bankrupt act or leaving a bottle +of eczema lotion in his pocket to make it look more like a square +deal.' + +"'Well,' says Andy, 'it does seem kind of hard on one's professional +pride to lope off with a bearded pard's competency, especially after +he has nominated you custodian of his bundle in the sappy insouciance +of his urban indiscrimination. Suppose we wake him up and see if we +can formulate some commercial sophistry by which he will be enabled to +give us both his money and a good excuse.' + +"We wakes up Whiskers. He stretches himself and yawns out the +hypothesis that he must have dropped off for a minute. And then he +says he wouldn't mind sitting in at a little gentleman's game of +poker. He used to play some when he attended high school in Brooklyn; +and as he was out for a good time, why--and so forth. + +"Andy brights up a little at that, for it looks like it might be a +solution to our financial troubles. So we all three go to our hotel +further down Broadway and have the cards and chips brought up to +Andy's room. I tried once more to make this Babe in the Horticultural +Gardens take his five thousand. But no. + +"'Keep that little roll for me, Mr. Peters,' says he, 'and oblige. +I'll ask you fer it when I want it. I guess I know when I'm among +friends. A man that's done business on Beekman street for twenty +years, right in the heart of the wisest old village on earth, ought to +know what he's about. I guess I can tell a gentleman from a con man or +a flimflammer when I meet him. I've got some odd change in my clothes +--enough to start the game with, I guess.' + +"He goes through his pockets and rains $20 gold certificates on the +table till it looked like a $10,000 'Autumn Day in a Lemon Grove' +picture by Turner in the salons. Andy almost smiled. + +"The first round that was dealt, this boulevardier slaps down his +hand, claims low and jack and big casino and rakes in the pot. + +"Andy always took a pride in his poker playing. He got up from the +table and looked sadly out of the window at the street cars. + +"'Well, gentlemen,' says the cigar man, 'I don't blame you for not +wanting to play. I've forgotten the fine points of the game, I guess, +it's been so long since I indulged. Now, how long are you gentlemen +going to be in the city?' + +"I told him about a week longer. He says that'll suit him fine. His +cousin is coming over from Brooklyn that evening and they are going to +see the sights of New York. His cousin, he says, is in the artificial +limb and lead casket business, and hasn't crossed the bridge in eight +years. They expect to have the time of their lives, and he winds up by +asking me to keep his roll of money for him till next day. I tried to +make him take it, but it only insulted him to mention it. + +"'I'll use what I've got in loose change,' says he. 'You keep the rest +for me. I'll drop in on you and Mr. Tucker to-morrow afternoon about 6 +or 7,' says he, 'and we'll have dinner together. Be good.' + +"After Whiskers had gone Andy looked at me curious and doubtful. + +"'Well, Jeff,' says he, 'it looks like the ravens are trying to feed +us two Elijahs so hard that if we turned 'em down again we ought to +have the Audubon Society after us. It won't do to put the crown aside +too often. I know this is something like paternalism, but don't you +think Opportunity has skinned its knuckles about enough knocking at +our door?' + +"I put my feet up on the table and my hands in my pockets, which is an +attitude unfavorable to frivolous thoughts. + +"'Andy,' says I, 'this man with the hirsute whiskers has got us in a +predicament. We can't move hand or foot with his money. You and me +have got a gentleman's agreement with Fortune that we can't break. +We've done business in the West where it's more of a fair game. Out +there the people we skin are trying to skin us, even the farmers and +the remittance men that the magazines send out to write up Goldfields. +But there's little sport in New York city for rod, reel or gun. They +hunt here with either one of two things--a slungshot or a letter of +introduction. The town has been stocked so full of carp that the game +fish are all gone. If you spread a net here, do you catch legitimate +suckers in it, such as the Lord intended to be caught--fresh guys who +know it all, sports with a little coin and the nerve to play another +man's game, street crowds out for the fun of dropping a dollar or +two and village smarties who know just where the little pea is? No, +sir,' says I. 'What the grafters live on here is widows and orphans, +and foreigners who save up a bag of money and hand it out over the +first counter they see with an iron railing to it, and factory girls +and little shopkeepers that never leave the block they do business +on. That's what they call suckers here. They're nothing but canned +sardines, and all the bait you need to catch 'em is a pocketknife and +a soda cracker. + +"'Now, this cigar man,' I went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived +twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would +in getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansas +crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that all +the time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front of +street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under a +safe that's being hoisted into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker does +loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the ice +jam in the Allegheny River. He'll swamp you with cracked ice and +back-water if you don't get out of the way. + +"'It's mighty lucky for us, Andy,' says I, 'that this cigar exponent +with the parsley dressing saw fit to bedeck us with his childlike +trust and altruism. For,' says I, 'this money of his is an eyesore to +my sense of rectitude and ethics. We can't take it, Andy; you know +we can't,' says I, 'for we haven't a shadow of a title to it--not a +shadow. If there was the least bit of a way we could put in a claim +to it I'd be willing to see him start in for another twenty years and +make another $5,000 for himself, but we haven't sold him anything, +we haven't been embroiled in a trade or anything commercial. He +approached us friendly,' says I, 'and with blind and beautiful idiocy +laid the stuff in our hands. We'll have to give it back to him when he +wants it.' + + +[Illustration: "'We can't take it, Andy.'"] + + +"'Your arguments,' says Andy, 'are past criticism or comprehension. +No, we can't walk off with the money--as things now stand. I admire +your conscious way of doing business, Jeff,' says Andy, 'and I +wouldn't propose anything that wasn't square in line with your +theories of morality and initiative. + +"'But I'll be away to-night and most of to-morrow Jeff,' says Andy. +'I've got some business affairs that I want to attend to. When this +free greenbacks party comes in to-morrow afternoon hold him here till +I arrive. We've all got an engagement for dinner, you know.' + +"Well, sir, about 5 the next afternoon in trips the cigar man, with +his eyes half open. + +"'Been having a glorious time, Mr. Peters,' says he. 'Took in all the +sights. I tell you New York is the onliest only. Now if you don't +mind,' says he, 'I'll lie down on that couch and doze off for about +nine minutes before Mr. Tucker comes. I'm not used to being up all +night. And to-morrow, if you don't mind, Mr. Peters, I'll take that +five thousand. I met a man last night that's got a sure winner at +the racetrack to-morrow. Excuse me for being so impolite as to go to +sleep, Mr. Peters.' + +"And so this inhabitant of the second city in the world reposes +himself and begins to snore, while I sit there musing over things and +wishing I was back in the West, where you could always depend on a +customer fighting to keep his money hard enough to let your conscience +take it from him. + +"At half-past 5 Andy comes in and sees the sleeping form. + +"'I've been over to Trenton,' says Andy, pulling a document out of his +pocket. 'I think I've got this matter fixed up all right, Jeff. Look +at that.' + +"I open the paper and see that it is a corporation charter issued +by the State of New Jersey to 'The Peters & Tucker Consolidated and +Amalgamated Aerial Franchise Development Company, Limited.' + +"'It's to buy up rights of way for airship lines,' explained Andy. +'The Legislature wasn't in session, but I found a man at a postcard +stand in the lobby that kept a stock of charters on hand. There are +100,000 shares,' says Andy, 'expected to reach a par value of $1. I +had one blank certificate of stock printed.' + +"Andy takes out the blank and begins to fill it in with a fountain +pen. + +"'The whole bunch,' says he, 'goes to our friend in dreamland for +$5,000. Did you learn his name?' + +"'Make it out to bearer,' says I. + +"We put the certificate of stock in the cigar man's hand and went out +to pack our suit cases. + + +[Illustration: "We put the certificate of stock in the cigarman's +hand."] + + +"On the ferryboat Andy says to me: 'Is your conscience easy about +taking the money now, Jeff?' + +"'Why shouldn't it be?' says I. 'Are we any better than any other +Holding Corporation?'" + + + + +CONSCIENCE IN ART + + +"I never could hold my partner, Andy Tucker, down to legitimate ethics +of pure swindling," said Jeff Peters to me one day. + +"Andy had too much imagination to be honest. He used to devise schemes +of money-getting so fraudulent and high-financial that they wouldn't +have been allowed in the bylaws of a railroad rebate system. + +"Myself, I never believed in taking any man's dollars unless I gave +him something for it--something in the way of rolled gold jewelry, +garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or a +crack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had New +England ancestors away back and inherited some of their stanch and +rugged fear of the police. + +"But Andy's family tree was in different kind. I don't think he could +have traced his descent any further back than a corporation. + +"One summer while we was in the middle West, working down the Ohio +valley with a line of family albums, headache powders and roach +destroyer, Andy takes one of his notions of high and actionable +financiering. + +"'Jeff,' says he, 'I've been thinking that we ought to drop these +rutabaga fanciers and give our attention to something more nourishing +and prolific. If we keep on snapshooting these hinds for their egg +money we'll be classed as nature fakers. How about plunging into the +fastnesses of the skyscraper country and biting some big bull caribous +in the chest?' + +"'Well,' says I, 'you know my idiosyncrasies. I prefer a square, +non-illegal style of business such as we are carrying on now. When I +take money I want to leave some tangible object in the other fellow's +hands for him to gaze at and to distract his attention from my spoor, +even if it's only a Komical Kuss Trick Finger Ring for Squirting +Perfume in a Friend's Eye. But if you've got a fresh idea, Andy,' says +I, 'let's have a look at it. I'm not so wedded to petty graft that I +would refuse something better in the way of a subsidy.' + +"'I was thinking,' says Andy, 'of a little hunt without horn, hound or +camera among the great herd of the Midas Americanus, commonly known as +the Pittsburg millionaires.' + +"'In New York?' I asks. + +"'No, sir,' says Andy, 'in Pittsburg. That's their habitat. They don't +like New York. They go there now and then just because it's expected +of 'em.' + +"'A Pittsburg millionaire in New York is like a fly in a cup of hot +coffee--he attracts attention and comment, but he don't enjoy it. New +York ridicules him for "blowing" so much money in that town of sneaks +and snobs, and sneers. The truth is, he don't spend anything while he +is there. I saw a memorandum of expenses for a ten days trip to Bunkum +Town made by a Pittsburg man worth $15,000,000 once. Here's the way he +set it down: + + + R. R. fare to and from . . . . . . . . $ 21 00 + Cab fare to and from hotel . . . . . . 2 00 + Hotel bill @ $5 per day . . . . . . . 50 00 + Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,750 00 + ---------- + Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5,823 00 + + +"'That's the voice of New York,' goes on Andy. 'The town's nothing but +a head waiter. If you tip it too much it'll go and stand by the door +and make fun of you to the hat check boy. When a Pittsburger wants to +spend money and have a good time he stays at home. That's where we'll +go to catch him.' + +"Well, to make a dense story more condensed, me and Andy cached our +paris green and antipyrine powders and albums in a friend's cellar, +and took the trail to Pittsburg. Andy didn't have any especial +prospectus of chicanery and violence drawn up, but he always had +plenty of confidence that his immoral nature would rise to any +occasion that presented itself. + +"As a concession to my ideas of self-preservation and rectitude he +promised that if I should take an active and incriminating part in +any little business venture that we might work up there should be +something actual and cognizant to the senses of touch, sight, taste or +smell to transfer to the victim for the money so my conscience might +rest easy. After that I felt better and entered more cheerfully into +the foul play. + +"'Andy,' says I, as we strayed through the smoke along the cinderpath +they call Smithfield street, 'had you figured out how we are going to +get acquainted with these coke kings and pig iron squeezers? Not that +I would decry my own worth or system of drawing room deportment, and +work with the olive fork and pie knife,' says I, 'but isn't the entree +nous into the salons of the stogie smokers going to be harder than you +imagined?' + +"'If there's any handicap at all,' says Andy, 'it's our own refinement +and inherent culture. Pittsburg millionaires are a fine body of plain, +wholehearted, unassuming, democratic men. + +"'They are rough but uncivil in their manners, and though their ways +are boisterous and unpolished, under it all they have a great deal +of impoliteness and discourtesy. Nearly every one of 'em rose from +obscurity,' says Andy, 'and they'll live in it till the town gets to +using smoke consumers. If we act simple and unaffected and don't go +too far from the saloons and keep making a noise like an import duty +on steel rails we won't have any trouble in meeting some of 'em +socially.' + +"Well Andy and me drifted about town three or four days getting our +bearings. We got to knowing several millionaires by sight. + +"One used to stop his automobile in front of our hotel and have a +quart of champagne brought out to him. When the waiter opened it he'd +turn it up to his mouth and drink it out of the bottle. That showed he +used to be a glassblower before he made his money. + +"One evening Andy failed to come to the hotel for dinner. About 11 +o'clock he came into my room. + +"'Landed one, Jeff,' says he. 'Twelve millions. Oil, rolling mills, +real estate and natural gas. He's a fine man; no airs about him. Made +all his money in the last five years. He's got professors posting him +up now in education--art and literature and haberdashery and such +things. + +"'When I saw him he'd just won a bet of $10,000 with a Steel +Corporation man that there'd be four suicides in the Allegheny rolling +mills to-day. So everybody in sight had to walk up and have drinks on +him. He took a fancy to me and asked me to dinner with him. We went to +a restaurant in Diamond alley and sat on stools and had a sparkling +Moselle and clam chowder and apple fritters. + +"'Then he wanted to show me his bachelor apartment on Liberty street. +He's got ten rooms over a fish market with privilege of the bath on +the next floor above. He told me it cost him $18,000 to furnish his +apartment, and I believe it. + +"'He's got $40,000 worth of pictures in one room, and $20,000 worth of +curios and antiques in another. His name's Scudder, and he's 45, and +taking lessons on the piano and 15,000 barrels of oil a day out of his +wells.' + +"'All right,' says I. 'Preliminary canter satisfactory. But, kay +vooly, voo? What good is the art junk to us? And the oil?' + +"'Now, that man,' says Andy, sitting thoughtfully on the bed, 'ain't +what you would call an ordinary scutt. When he was showing me his +cabinet of art curios his face lighted up like the door of a coke +oven. He says that if some of his big deals go through he'll make +J. P. Morgan's collection of sweatshop tapestry and Augusta, Me., +beadwork look like the contents of an ostrich's craw thrown on a +screen by a magic lantern. + +"'And then he showed me a little carving,' went on Andy, 'that anybody +could see was a wonderful thing. It was something like 2,000 years +old, he said. It was a lotus flower with a woman's face in it carved +out of a solid piece of ivory. + +"Scudder looks it up in a catalogue and describes it. An Egyptian +carver named Khafra made two of 'em for King Rameses II. about the +year B.C. The other one can't be found. The junkshops and antique bugs +have rubbered all Europe for it, but it seems to be out of stock. +Scudder paid $2,000 for the one he has.' + +"'Oh, well,' says I, 'this sounds like the purling of a rill to me. I +thought we came here to teach the millionaires business, instead of +learning art from 'em?' + +"'Be patient,' says Andy, kindly. 'Maybe we will see a rift in the +smoke ere long.' + +"All the next morning Andy was out. I didn't see him until about noon. +He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. He +pulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocket +and unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described the +millionaire's to me. + +"'I went in an old second hand store and pawnshop a while ago,' says +Andy, 'and I see this half hidden under a lot of old daggers and +truck. The pawnbroker said he'd had it several years and thinks it was +soaked by some Arabs or Turks or some foreign dubs that used to live +down by the river. + +"'I offered him $2 for it, and I must have looked like I wanted it, +for he said it would be taking the pumpernickel out of his children's +mouths to hold any conversation that did not lead up to a price of +$35. I finally got it for $25. + +"'Jeff,' goes on Andy, 'this is the exact counterpart of Scudder's +carving. It's absolutely a dead ringer for it. He'll pay $2,000 for it +as quick as he'd tuck a napkin under his chin. And why shouldn't it be +the genuine other one, anyhow, that the old gypsy whittled out?' + +"'Why not, indeed?' says I. 'And how shall we go about compelling him +to make a voluntary purchase of it?' + +"Andy had his plan all ready, and I'll tell you how we carried it out. + +"I got a pair of blue spectacles, put on my black frock coat, rumpled +my hair up and became Prof. Pickleman. I went to another hotel, +registered, and sent a telegram to Scudder to come to see me at once +on important art business. The elevator dumped him on me in less +than an hour. He was a foggy man with a clarion voice, smelling of +Connecticut wrappers and naphtha. + +"'Hello, Profess!' he shouts. 'How's your conduct?' + +"I rumpled my hair some more and gave him a blue glass stare. + +"'Sir,' says I, 'are you Cornelius T. Scudder? Of Pittsburg, +Pennsylvania?' + +"'I am,' says he. 'Come out and have a drink.' + +"'I've neither the time nor the desire,' says I, 'for such harmful +and deleterious amusements. I have come from New York,' says I, 'on a +matter of busi--on a matter of art. + +"'I learned there that you are the owner of an Egyptian ivory carving +of the time of Rameses II., representing the head of Queen Isis in a +lotus flower. There were only two of such carvings made. One has been +lost for many years. I recently discovered and purchased the other in +a pawn--in an obscure museum in Vienna. I wish to purchase yours. Name +your price.' + +"'Well, the great ice jams, Profess!' says Scudder. 'Have you found +the other one? Me sell? No. I don't guess Cornelius Scudder needs to +sell anything that he wants to keep. Have you got the carving with +you, Profess?' + +"I shows it to Scudder. He examines it careful all over. + +"'It's the article,' says he. 'It's a duplicate of mine, every line +and curve of it. Tell you what I'll do,' he says. 'I won't sell, but +I'll buy. Give you $2,500 for yours.' + +"'Since you won't sell, I will,' says I. 'Large bills, please. I'm a +man of few words. I must return to New York to-night. I lecture +to-morrow at the aquarium.' + +"Scudder sends a check down and the hotel cashes it. He goes off with +his piece of antiquity and I hurry back to Andy's hotel, according to +arrangement. + +"Andy is walking up and down the room looking at his watch. + +"'Well?' he says. + +"'Twenty-five hundred,' says I. 'Cash.' + +"'We've got just eleven minutes,' says Andy, 'to catch the B. & O. +westbound. Grab your baggage.' + +"'What's the hurry,' says I. 'It was a square deal. And even if it was +only an imitation of the original carving it'll take him some time to +find it out. He seemed to be sure it was the genuine article.' + +"'It was,' says Andy. 'It was his own. When I was looking at his +curios yesterday he stepped out of the room for a moment and I +pocketed it. Now, will you pick up your suit case and hurry?' + +"'Then,' says I, 'why was that story about finding another one in the +pawn--' + +"'Oh,' says Andy, 'out of respect for that conscience of yours. Come +on.'" + + + + +THE MAN HIGHER UP + + +Across our two dishes of spaghetti, in a corner of Provenzano's +restaurant, Jeff Peters was explaining to me the three kinds of graft. + +Every winter Jeff comes to New York to eat spaghetti, to watch the +shipping in East River from the depths of his chinchilla overcoat, +and to lay in a supply of Chicago-made clothing at one of the Fulton +street stores. During the other three seasons he may be found further +west--his range is from Spokane to Tampa. In his profession he +takes a pride which he supports and defends with a serious and +unique philosophy of ethics. His profession is no new one. He is an +incorporated, uncapitalized, unlimited asylum for the reception of +the restless and unwise dollars of his fellowmen. + +In the wilderness of stone in which Jeff seeks his annual lonely +holiday he is glad to palaver of his many adventures, as a boy will +whistle after sundown in a wood. Wherefore, I mark on my calendar the +time of his coming, and open a question of privilege at Provenzano's +concerning the little wine-stained table in the corner between the +rakish rubber plant and the framed palazzio della something on the +wall. + +"There are two kinds of graft," said Jeff, "that ought to be wiped out +by law. I mean Wall Street speculation, and burglary." + +"Nearly everybody will agree with you as to one of them," said I, with +a laugh. + +"Well, burglary ought to be wiped out, too," said Jeff; and I wondered +whether the laugh had been redundant. + +"About three months ago," said Jeff, "it was my privilege to become +familiar with a sample of each of the aforesaid branches of +illegitimate art. I was _sine qua grata_ with a member of the +housebreakers' union and one of the John D. Napoleons of finance at +the same time." + +"Interesting combination," said I, with a yawn. "Did I tell you I +bagged a duck and a ground-squirrel at one shot last week over in the +Ramapos?" I knew well how to draw Jeff's stories. + +"Let me tell you first about these barnacles that clog the wheels of +society by poisoning the springs of rectitude with their upas-like +eye," said Jeff, with the pure gleam of the muck-raker in his own. + +"As I said, three months ago I got into bad company. There are two +times in a man's life when he does this--when he's dead broke, and +when he's rich. + +"Now and then the most legitimate business runs out of luck. It was +out in Arkansas I made the wrong turn at a cross-road, and drives into +this town of Peavine by mistake. It seems I had already assaulted and +disfigured Peavine the spring of the year before. I had sold $600 +worth of young fruit trees there--plums, cherries, peaches and pears. +The Peaviners were keeping an eye on the country road and hoping I +might pass that way again. I drove down Main street as far as the +Crystal Palace drugstore before I realized I had committed ambush upon +myself and my white horse Bill. + +"The Peaviners took me by surprise and Bill by the bridle and began +a conversation that wasn't entirely disassociated with the subject +of fruit trees. A committee of 'em ran some trace-chains through +the armholes of my vest, and escorted me through their gardens and +orchards. + +"Their fruit trees hadn't lived up to their labels. Most of 'em had +turned out to be persimmons and dogwoods, with a grove or two of +blackjacks and poplars. The only one that showed any signs of bearing +anything was a fine young cottonwood that had put forth a hornet's +nest and half of an old corset-cover. + +"The Peaviners protracted our fruitless stroll to the edge of town. +They took my watch and money on account; and they kept Bill and the +wagon as hostages. They said the first time one of them dogwood trees +put forth an Amsden's June peach I might come back and get my things. +Then they took off the trace chains and jerked their thumbs in the +direction of the Rocky Mountains; and I struck a Lewis and Clark lope +for the swollen rivers and impenetrable forests. + +"When I regained intellectualness I found myself walking into an +unidentified town on the A., T. & S. F. railroad. The Peaviners hadn't +left anything in my pockets except a plug of chewing--they wasn't +after my life--and that saved it. I bit off a chunk and sits down on a +pile of ties by the track to recogitate my sensations of thought and +perspicacity. + +"And then along comes a fast freight which slows up a little at the +town; and off of it drops a black bundle that rolls for twenty yards +in a cloud of dust and then gets up and begins to spit soft coal and +interjections. I see it is a young man broad across the face, dressed +more for Pullmans than freights, and with a cheerful kind of smile in +spite of it all that made Phoebe Snow's job look like a chimney-sweep's. + +"'Fall off?' says I. + +"'Nunk,' says he. 'Got off. Arrived at my destination. What town is +this?' + +"'Haven't looked it up on the map yet,' says I. 'I got in about five +minutes before you did. How does it strike you?' + +"'Hard,' says he, twisting one of his arms around. 'I believe that +shoulder--no, it's all right.' + +"He stoops over to brush the dust off his clothes, when out of his +pocket drops a fine, nine-inch burglar's steel jimmy. He picks it up +and looks at me sharp, and then grins and holds out his hand. + +"'Brother,' says he, 'greetings. Didn't I see you in Southern Missouri +last summer selling colored sand at half-a-dollar a teaspoonful to put +into lamps to keep the oil from exploding?' + +"'Oil,' says I, 'never explodes. It's the gas that forms that +explodes.' But I shakes hands with him, anyway. + +"'My name's Bill Bassett,' says he to me, 'and if you'll call it +professional pride instead of conceit, I'll inform you that you have +the pleasure of meeting the best burglar that ever set a gum-shoe on +ground drained by the Mississippi River.' + +"Well, me and this Bill Bassett sits on the ties and exchanges brags +as artists in kindred lines will do. It seems he didn't have a cent, +either, and we went into close caucus. He explained why an able +burglar sometimes had to travel on freights by telling me that a +servant girl had played him false in Little Rock, and he was making +a quick get-away. + +"'It's part of my business,' says Bill Bassett, 'to play up to the +ruffles when I want to make a riffle as Raffles. 'Tis loves that makes +the bit go 'round. Show me a house with a swag in it and a pretty +parlor-maid, and you might as well call the silver melted down and +sold, and me spilling truffles and that Chateau stuff on the napkin +under my chin, while the police are calling it an inside job just +because the old lady's nephew teaches a Bible class. I first make an +impression on the girl,' says Bill, 'and when she lets me inside I +make an impression on the locks. But this one in Little Rock done me,' +says he. 'She saw me taking a trolley ride with another girl, and when +I came 'round on the night she was to leave the door open for me it +was fast. And I had keys made for the doors upstairs. But, no sir. She +had sure cut off my locks. She was a Delilah,' says Bill Bassett. + +"It seems that Bill tried to break in anyhow with his jimmy, but the +girl emitted a succession of bravura noises like the top-riders of a +tally-ho, and Bill had to take all the hurdles between there and the +depot. As he had no baggage they tried hard to check his departure, +but he made a train that was just pulling out. + +"'Well,' says Bill Bassett, when we had exchanged memories of our dead +lives, 'I could eat. This town don't look like it was kept under a +Yale lock. Suppose we commit some mild atrocity that will bring in +temporary expense money. I don't suppose you've brought along any hair +tonic or rolled gold watch-chains, or similar law-defying swindles +that you could sell on the plaza to the pikers of the paretic +populace, have you?' + +"'No,' says I, 'I left an elegant line of Patagonian diamond earrings +and rainy-day sunbursts in my valise at Peavine. But they're to stay +there until some of those black-gum trees begin to glut the market +with yellow clings and Japanese plums. I reckon we can't count on them +unless we take Luther Burbank in for a partner.' + +"'Very well,' says Bassett, 'we'll do the best we can. Maybe after +dark I'll borrow a hairpin from some lady, and open the Farmers and +Drovers Marine Bank with it.' + +"While we were talking, up pulls a passenger train to the depot near +by. A person in a high hat gets off on the wrong side of the train and +comes tripping down the track towards us. He was a little, fat man +with a big nose and rat's eyes, but dressed expensive, and carrying a +hand-satchel careful, as if it had eggs or railroads bonds in it. He +passes by us and keeps on down the track, not appearing to notice the +town. + +"'Come on,' says Bill Bassett to me, starting after him. + +"'Where?' I asks. + +"'Lordy!' says Bill, 'had you forgot you was in the desert? Didn't you +see Colonel Manna drop down right before your eyes? Don't you hear the +rustling of General Raven's wings? I'm surprised at you, Elijah.' + +"We overtook the stranger in the edge of some woods, and, as it was +after sun-down and in a quiet place, nobody saw us stop him. Bill +takes the silk hat off the man's head and brushes it with his sleeve +and puts it back. + +"'What does this mean, sir?' says the man. + +"'When I wore one of these,' says Bill, 'and felt embarrassed, I +always done that. Not having one now I had to use yours. I hardly know +how to begin, sir, in explaining our business with you, but I guess +we'll try your pockets first.' + +"Bill Bassett felt in all of them, and looked disgusted. + +"'Not even a watch,' he says. 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you +whited sculpture? Going about dressed like a head-waiter, and financed +like a Count! You haven't even got carfare. What did you do with your +transfer?' + +"The man speaks up and says he has no assets or valuables of any +sort. But Bassett takes his hand-satchel and opens it. Out comes some +collars and socks and a half a page of a newspaper clipped out. Bill +reads the clipping careful, and holds out his hand to the held-up +party. + +"'Brother,' says he, 'greetings! Accept the apologies of friends. I am +Bill Bassett, the burglar. Mr. Peters, you must make the acquaintance +of Mr. Alfred E. Ricks. Shake hands. Mr. Peters,' says Bill, 'stands +about halfway between me and you, Mr. Ricks, in the line of havoc and +corruption. He always gives something for the money he gets. I'm glad +to meet you, Mr. Ricks--you and Mr. Peters. This is the first time +I ever attended a full gathering of the National Synod of Sharks-- +housebreaking, swindling, and financiering all represented. Please +examine Mr. Rick's credentials, Mr. Peters.' + +"The piece of newspaper that Bill Bassett handed me had a good picture +of this Ricks on it. It was a Chicago paper, and it had obloquies +of Ricks in every paragraph. By reading it over I harvested the +intelligence that said alleged Ricks had laid off all that portion of +the State of Florida that lies under water into town lots and sold 'em +to alleged innocent investors from his magnificently furnished offices +in Chicago. After he had taken in a hundred thousand or so dollars one +of these fussy purchasers that are always making trouble (I've had +'em actually try gold watches I've sold 'em with acid) took a cheap +excursion down to the land where it is always just before supper to +look at his lot and see if it didn't need a new paling or two on the +fence, and market a few lemons in time for the Christmas present +trade. He hires a surveyor to find his lot for him. They run the line +out and find the flourishing town of Paradise Hollow, so advertised, +to be about 40 rods and 16 poles S., 27 degrees E. of the middle of +Lake Okeechobee. This man's lot was under thirty-six feet of water, +and, besides, had been preempted so long by the alligators and gars +that his title looked fishy. + +"Naturally, the man goes back to Chicago and makes it as hot for +Alfred E. Ricks as the morning after a prediction of snow by the +weather bureau. Ricks defied the allegation, but he couldn't deny +the alligators. One morning the papers came out with a column about +it, and Ricks come out by the fire-escape. It seems the alleged +authorities had beat him to the safe-deposit box where he kept his +winnings, and Ricks has to westward ho! with only feetwear and a dozen +15-and-a-half English pokes in his shopping bag. He happened to have +some mileage left in his book, and that took him as far as the town +in the wilderness where he was spilled out on me and Bill Bassett as +Elijah III. with not a raven in sight for any of us. + +"Then this Alfred E. Ricks lets out a squeak that he is hungry, too, +and denies the hypothesis that he is good for the value, let alone the +price, of a meal. And so, there was the three of us, representing, if +we had a mind to draw syllogisms and parabolas, labor and trade and +capital. Now, when trade has no capital there isn't a dicker to be +made. And when capital has no money there's a stagnation in steak and +onions. That put it up to the man with the jimmy. + +"'Brother bushrangers,' says Bill Bassett, 'never yet, in trouble, +did I desert a pal. Hard by, in yon wood, I seem to see unfurnished +lodgings. Let us go there and wait till dark.' + +"There was an old, deserted cabin in the grove, and we three took +possession of it. After dark Bill Bassett tells us to wait, and goes +out for half an hour. He comes back with a armful of bread and +spareribs and pies. + +"'Panhandled 'em at a farmhouse on Washita Avenue,' says he. 'Eat, +drink and be leary.' + +"The full moon was coming up bright, so we sat on the floor of the +cabin and ate in the light of it. And this Bill Bassett begins to +brag. + +"'Sometimes,' says he, with his mouth full of country produce, 'I +lose all patience with you people that think you are higher up in +the profession than I am. Now, what could either of you have done in +the present emergency to set us on our feet again? Could you do it, +Ricksy?' + +"'I must confess, Mr. Bassett,' says Ricks, speaking nearly inaudible +out of a slice of pie, 'that at this immediate juncture I could +not, perhaps, promote an enterprise to relieve the situation. Large +operations, such as I direct, naturally require careful preparation in +advance. I--' + +"'I know, Ricksy,' breaks in Bill Bassett. 'You needn't finish. You +need $500 to make the first payment on a blond typewriter, and four +roomsful of quartered oak furniture. And you need $500 more for +advertising contracts. And you need two weeks' time for the fish to +begin to bite. Your line of relief would be about as useful in an +emergency as advocating municipal ownership to cure a man suffocated +by eighty-cent gas. And your graft ain't much swifter, Brother +Peters,' he winds up. + +"'Oh,' says I, 'I haven't seen you turn anything into gold with your +wand yet, Mr. Good Fairy. 'Most anybody could rub the magic ring for +a little left-over victuals.' + +"'That was only getting the pumpkin ready,' says Bassett, braggy +and cheerful. 'The coach and six'll drive up to the door before you +know it, Miss Cinderella. Maybe you've got some scheme under your +sleeve-holders that will give us a start.' + +"'Son,' says I, 'I'm fifteen years older than you are, and young +enough yet to take out an endowment policy. I've been broke before. We +can see the lights of that town not half a mile away. I learned under +Montague Silver, the greatest street man that ever spoke from a wagon. +There are hundreds of men walking those streets this moment with +grease spots on their clothes. Give me a gasoline lamp, a dry-goods +box, and a two-dollar bar of white castile soap, cut into little--' + +"'Where's your two dollars?' snickered Bill Bassett into my discourse. +There was no use arguing with that burglar. + +"'No,' he goes on; 'you're both babes-in-the-wood. Finance has closed +the mahogany desk, and trade has put the shutters up. Both of you look +to labor to start the wheels going. All right. You admit it. To-night +I'll show you what Bill Bassett can do.' + +"Bassett tells me and Ricks not to leave the cabin till he comes back, +even if it's daylight, and then he starts off toward town, whistling +gay. + +"This Alfred E. Ricks pulls off his shoes and his coat, lays a silk +handkerchief over his hat, and lays down on the floor. + +"'I think I will endeavor to secure a little slumber,' he squeaks. +'The day has been fatiguing. Good-night, my dear Mr. Peters.' + +"'My regards to Morpheus,' says I. 'I think I'll sit up a while.' + +"About two o'clock, as near as I could guess by my watch in Peavine, +home comes our laboring man and kicks up Ricks, and calls us to the +streak of bright moonlight shining in the cabin door. Then he spreads +out five packages of one thousand dollars each on the floor, and +begins to cackle over the nest-egg like a hen. + +"'I'll tell you a few things about that town,' says he. 'It's named +Rocky Springs, and they're building a Masonic temple, and it looks +like the Democratic candidate for mayor is going to get soaked by a +Pop, and Judge Tucker's wife, who has been down with pleurisy, is +getting some better. I had a talk on these liliputian thesises before +I could get a siphon in the fountain of knowledge that I was after. +And there's a bank there called the Lumberman's Fidelity and Plowman's +Savings Institution. It closed for business yesterday with $23,000 +cash on hand. It will open this morning with $18,000--all silver-- +that's the reason I didn't bring more. There you are, trade and +capital. Now, will you be bad?' + +"'My young friend,' says Alfred E. Ricks, holding up his hands, 'have +you robbed this bank? Dear me, dear me!' + +"'You couldn't call it that,' says Bassett. 'Robbing" sounds harsh. +All I had to do was to find out what street it was on. That town is so +quiet that I could stand on the corner and hear the tumblers clicking +in that safe lock--"right to 45; left twice to 80; right once to +60; left to 15"--as plain as the Yale captain giving orders in the +football dialect. Now, boys,' says Bassett, 'this is an early rising +town. They tell me the citizens are all up and stirring before +daylight. I asked what for, and they said because breakfast was ready +at that time. And what of merry Robin Hood? It must be Yoicks! and +away with the tinkers' chorus. I'll stake you. How much do you want? +Speak up. Capital.' + +"'My dear young friend,' says this ground squirrel of a Ricks, +standing on his hind legs and juggling nuts in his paws, 'I have +friends in Denver who would assist me. If I had a hundred dollars I--' + +"Basset unpins a package of the currency and throws five twenties to +Ricks. + +"'Trade, how much?' he says to me. + +"'Put your money up, Labor,' says I. 'I never yet drew upon honest +toil for its hard-earned pittance. The dollars I get are surplus ones +that are burning the pockets of damfools and greenhorns. When I stand +on a street corner and sell a solid gold diamond ring to a yap for +$3.00, I make just $2.60. And I know he's going to give it to a girl +in return for all the benefits accruing from a $125.00 ring. His +profits are $122.00. Which of us is the biggest fakir?' + +"'And when you sell a poor woman a pinch of sand for fifty cents to +keep her lamp from exploding,' says Bassett, 'what do you figure her +gross earnings to be, with sand at forty cents a ton?' + +"'Listen,' says I. 'I instruct her to keep her lamp clean and well +filled. If she does that it can't burst. And with the sand in it +she knows it can't, and she don't worry. It's a kind of Industrial +Christian Science. She pays fifty cents, and gets both Rockefeller and +Mrs. Eddy on the job. It ain't everybody that can let the gold-dust +twins do their work.' + +"Alfred E. Ricks all but licks the dust off of Bill Bassett's shoes. + +"'My dear young friend,' says he, 'I will never forget your +generosity. Heaven will reward you. But let me implore you to turn +from your ways of violence and crime.' + +"'Mousie,' says Bill, 'the hole in the wainscoting for yours. Your +dogmas and inculcations sound to me like the last words of a bicycle +pump. What has your high moral, elevator-service system of pillage +brought you to? Penuriousness and want. Even Brother Peters, who +insists upon contaminating the art of robbery with theories of +commerce and trade, admitted he was on the lift. Both of you live by +the gilded rule. Brother Peters,' says Bill, 'you'd better choose a +slice of this embalmed currency. You're welcome.' + +"I told Bill Bassett once more to put his money in his pocket. I never +had the respect for burglary that some people have. I always gave +something for the money I took, even if it was only some little trifle +for a souvenir to remind 'em not to get caught again. + +"And then Alfred E. Ricks grovels at Bill's feet again, and bids us +adieu. He says he will have a team at a farmhouse, and drive to the +station below, and take the train for Denver. It salubrified the +atmosphere when that lamentable boll-worm took his departure. He was a +disgrace to every non-industrial profession in the country. With all +his big schemes and fine offices he had wound up unable even to get an +honest meal except by the kindness of a strange and maybe unscrupulous +burglar. I was glad to see him go, though I felt a little sorry for +him, now that he was ruined forever. What could such a man do without +a big capital to work with? Why, Alfred E. Ricks, as we left him, was +as helpless as turtle on its back. He couldn't have worked a scheme to +beat a little girl out of a penny slate-pencil. + +"When me and Bill Bassett was left alone I did a little +sleight-of-mind turn in my head with a trade secret at the end of +it. Thinks I, I'll show this Mr. Burglar Man the difference between +business and labor. He had hurt some of my professional self-adulation +by casting his Persians upon commerce and trade. + +"'I won't take any of your money as a gift, Mr. Bassett,' says I to +him, 'but if you'll pay my expenses as a travelling companion until we +get out of the danger zone of the immoral deficit you have caused in +this town's finances to-night, I'll be obliged.' + +"Bill Bassett agreed to that, and we hiked westward as soon as we +could catch a safe train. + +"When we got to a town in Arizona called Los Perros I suggested +that we once more try our luck on terra-cotta. That was the home of +Montague Silver, my old instructor, now retired from business. I knew +Monty would stake me to web money if I could show him a fly buzzing +'round the locality. Bill Bassett said all towns looked alike to +him as he worked mainly in the dark. So we got off the train in Los +Perros, a fine little town in the silver region. + +"I had an elegant little sure thing in the way of a commercial +slungshot that I intended to hit Bassett behind the ear with. I wasn't +going to take his money while he was asleep, but I was going to leave +him with a lottery ticket that would represent in experience to him +$4,755--I think that was the amount he had when we got off the train. +But the first time I hinted to him about an investment, he turns on me +and disencumbers himself of the following terms and expressions. + +"'Brother Peters,' says he, 'it ain't a bad idea to go into an +enterprise of some kind, as you suggest. I think I will. But if I do +it will be such a cold proposition that nobody but Robert E. Peary and +Charlie Fairbanks will be able to sit on the board of directors.' + +"'I thought you might want to turn your money over,' says I. + +"'I do,' says he, 'frequently. I can't sleep on one side all night. +I'll tell you, Brother Peters,' says he, 'I'm going to start a poker +room. I don't seem to care for the humdrum in swindling, such as +peddling egg-beaters and working off breakfast food on Barnum and +Bailey for sawdust to strew in their circus rings. But the gambling +business,' says he, 'from the profitable side of the table is a good +compromise between swiping silver spoons and selling penwipers at a +Waldorf-Astoria charity bazar.' + +"'Then,' says I, 'Mr. Bassett, you don't care to talk over my little +business proposition?' + +"'Why,' says he, 'do you know, you can't get a Pasteur institute to +start up within fifty miles of where I live. I bite so seldom.' + +"So, Bassett rents a room over a saloon and looks around for some +furniture and chromos. The same night I went to Monty Silver's house, +and he let me have $200 on my prospects. Then I went to the only store +in Los Perros that sold playing cards and bought every deck in the +house. The next morning when the store opened I was there bringing all +the cards back with me. I said that my partner that was going to back +me in the game had changed his mind; and I wanted to sell the cards +back again. The storekeeper took 'em at half price. + +"Yes, I was seventy-five dollars loser up to that time. But while I +had the cards that night I marked every one in every deck. That was +labor. And then trade and commerce had their innings, and the bread +I had cast upon the waters began to come back in the form of cottage +pudding with wine sauce. + +"Of course I was among the first to buy chips at Bill Bassett's game. +He had bought the only cards there was to be had in town; and I knew +the back of every one of them better than I know the back of my head +when the barber shows me my haircut in the two mirrors. + +"When the game closed I had the five thousand and a few odd dollars, +and all Bill Bassett had was the wanderlust and a black cat he had +bought for a mascot. Bill shook hands with me when I left. + +"'Brother Peters,' says he, 'I have no business being in business. I +was preordained to labor. When a No. 1 burglar tries to make a James +out of his jimmy he perpetrates an improfundity. You have a well-oiled +and efficacious system of luck at cards,' says he. 'Peace go with +you.' And I never afterward sees Bill Bassett again." + + + +"Well, Jeff," said I, when the Autolycan adventurer seemed to have +divulged the gist of his tale, "I hope you took care of the money. +That would be a respecta--that is a considerable working capital if +you should choose some day to settle down to some sort of regular +business." + +"Me?" said Jeff, virtuously. "You can bet I've taken care of that five +thousand." + +He tapped his coat over the region of his chest exultantly. + +"Gold mining stock," he explained, "every cent of it. Shares par value +one dollar. Bound to go up 500 per cent. within a year. Non-assessable. +The Blue Gopher mine. Just discovered a month ago. Better get in +yourself if you've any spare dollars on hand." + +"Sometimes," said I, "these mines are not--" + +"Oh, this one's solid as an old goose," said Jeff. "Fifty thousand +dollars' worth of ore in sight, and 10 per cent. monthly earnings +guaranteed." + +He drew out a long envelope from his pocket and cast it on the table. + +"Always carry it with me," said he. "So the burglar can't corrupt or +the capitalist break in and water it." + +I looked at the beautifully engraved certificate of stock. + +"In Colorado, I see," said I. "And, by the way, Jeff, what was the +name of the little man who went to Denver--the one you and Bill met at +the station?" + +"Alfred E. Ricks," said Jeff, "was the toad's designation." + +"I see," said I, "the president of this mining company signs himself +A. L. Fredericks. I was wondering--" + +"Let me see that stock," said Jeff quickly, almost snatching it from +me. + +To mitigate, even though slightly, the embarrassment I summoned the +waiter and ordered another bottle of the Barbera. I thought it was the +least I could do. + + + + +A TEMPERED WIND + + +The first time my optical nerves was disturbed by the sight of +Buckingham Skinner was in Kansas City. I was standing on a corner when +I see Buck stick his straw-colored head out of a third-story window of +a business block and holler, "Whoa, there! Whoa!" like you would in +endeavoring to assuage a team of runaway mules. + +I looked around; but all the animals I see in sight is a policeman, +having his shoes shined, and a couple of delivery wagons hitched to +posts. Then in a minute downstairs tumbles this Buckingham Skinner, +and runs to the corner, and stands and gazes down the other street at +the imaginary dust kicked up by the fabulous hoofs of the fictitious +team of chimerical quadrupeds. And then B. Skinner goes back up to the +third-story room again, and I see that the lettering on the window is +"The Farmers' Friend Loan Company." + +By and by Straw-top comes down again, and I crossed the street to meet +him, for I had my ideas. Yes, sir, when I got close I could see where +he overdone it. He was Reub all right as far as his blue jeans and +cowhide boots went, but he had a matinee actor's hands, and the rye +straw stuck over his ear looked like it belonged to the property man +of the Old Homestead Co. Curiosity to know what his graft was got the +best of me. + +"Was that your team broke away and run just now?" I asks him, polite. +"I tried to stop 'em," says I, "but I couldn't. I guess they're half +way back to the farm by now." + +"Gosh blame them darned mules," says Straw-top, in a voice so good +that I nearly apologized; "they're a'lus bustin' loose." And then he +looks at me close, and then he takes off his hayseed hat, and says, in +a different voice: "I'd like to shake hands with Parleyvoo Pickens, +the greatest street man in the West, barring only Montague Silver, +which you can no more than allow." + +I let him shake hands with me. + +"I learned under Silver," I said; "I don't begrudge him the lead. +But what's your graft, son? I admit that the phantom flight of the +non-existing animals at which you remarked 'Whoa!' has puzzled me +somewhat. How do you win out on the trick?" + +Buckingham Skinner blushed. + +"Pocket money," says he; "that's all. I am temporarily unfinanced. +This little coup de rye straw is good for forty dollars in a town of +this size. How do I work it? Why, I involve myself, as you perceive, +in the loathsome apparel of the rural dub. Thus embalmed I am Jonas +Stubblefield--a name impossible to improve upon. I repair noisily +to the office of some loan company conveniently located in the +third-floor, front. There I lay my hat and yarn gloves on the floor +and ask to mortgage my farm for $2,000 to pay for my sister's musical +education in Europe. Loans like that always suit the loan companies. +It's ten to one that when the note falls due the foreclosure will be +leading the semiquavers by a couple of lengths. + +"Well, sir, I reach in my pocket for the abstract of title; but I +suddenly hear my team running away. I run to the window and emit the +word--or exclamation, which-ever it may be--viz, 'Whoa!' Then I rush +down-stairs and down the street, returning in a few minutes. 'Dang +them mules,' I says; 'they done run away and busted the doubletree and +two traces. Now I got to hoof it home, for I never brought no money +along. Reckon we'll talk about that loan some other time, gen'lemen.' + +"Then I spreads out my tarpaulin, like the Israelites, and waits for +the manna to drop. + +"'Why, no, Mr. Stubblefield,' says the lobster-colored party in the +specs and dotted pique vest; 'oblige us by accepting this ten-dollar +bill until to-morrow. Get your harness repaired and call in at ten. +We'll be pleased to accommodate you in the matter of this loan.' + +"It's a slight thing," says Buckingham Skinner, modest, "but, as I +said, only for temporary loose change." + +"It's nothing to be ashamed of," says I, in respect for his +mortification; "in case of an emergency. Of course, it's small +compared to organizing a trust or bridge whist, but even the Chicago +University had to be started in a small way." + +"What's your graft these days?" Buckingham Skinner asks me. + +"The legitimate," says I. "I'm handling rhinestones and Dr. Oleum +Sinapi's Electric Headache Battery and the Swiss Warbler's Bird Call, +a small lot of the new queer ones and twos, and the Bonanza Budget, +consisting of a rolled-gold wedding and engagement ring, six Egyptian +lily bulbs, a combination pickle fork and nail-clipper, and fifty +engraved visiting cards--no two names alike--all for the sum of 38 +cents." + +"Two months ago," says Buckingham Skinner, "I was doing well down in +Texas with a patent instantaneous fire kindler, made of compressed +wood ashes and benzine. I sold loads of 'em in towns where they like +to burn niggers quick, without having to ask somebody for a light. And +just when I was doing the best they strikes oil down there and puts me +out of business. 'Your machine's too slow, now, pardner,' they tells +me. 'We can have a coon in hell with this here petroleum before +your old flint-and-tinder truck can get him warm enough to perfess +religion.' And so I gives up the kindler and drifts up here to K.C. +This little curtain-raiser you seen me doing, Mr. Pickens, with the +simulated farm and the hypothetical teams, ain't in my line at all, +and I'm ashamed you found me working it." + +"No man," says I, kindly, "need to be ashamed of putting the skibunk +on a loan corporation for even so small a sum as ten dollars, when he +is financially abashed. Still, it wasn't quite the proper thing. It's +too much like borrowing money without paying it back." + +I liked Buckingham Skinner from the start, for as good a man as ever +stood over the axles and breathed gasoline smoke. And pretty soon we +gets thick, and I let him in on a scheme I'd had in mind for some +time, and offers to go partners. + +"Anything," says Buck, "that is not actually dishonest will find +me willing and ready. Let us perforate into the inwardness of your +proposition. I feel degraded when I am forced to wear property straw +in my hair and assume a bucolic air for the small sum of ten dollars. +Actually, Mr. Pickens, it makes me feel like the Ophelia of the Great +Occidental All-Star One-Night Consolidated Theatrical Aggregation." + +This scheme of mine was one that suited my proclivities. By nature I +am some sentimental, and have always felt gentle toward the mollifying +elements of existence. I am disposed to be lenient with the arts and +sciences; and I find time to instigate a cordiality for the more human +works of nature, such as romance and the atmosphere and grass and +poetry and the Seasons. I never skin a sucker without admiring the +prismatic beauty of his scales. I never sell a little auriferous +beauty to the man with the hoe without noticing the beautiful harmony +there is between gold and green. And that's why I liked this scheme; +it was so full of outdoor air and landscapes and easy money. + +We had to have a young lady assistant to help us work this graft; and +I asked Buck if he knew of one to fill the bill. + +"One," says I, "that is cool and wise and strictly business from her +pompadour to her Oxfords. No ex-toe-dancers or gum-chewers or crayon +portrait canvassers for this." + +Buck claimed he knew a suitable feminine and he takes me around to see +Miss Sarah Malloy. The minute I see her I am pleased. She looked to be +the goods as ordered. No sign of the three p's about her--no peroxide, +patchouli, nor peau de soie; about twenty-two, brown hair, pleasant +ways--the kind of a lady for the place. + +"A description of the sandbag, if you please," she begins. + +"Why, ma'am," says I, "this graft of ours is so nice and refined and +romantic, it would make the balcony scene in 'Romeo and Juliet' look +like second-story work." + +We talked it over, and Miss Malloy agreed to come in as a business +partner. She said she was glad to get a chance to give up her place +as stenographer and secretary to a suburban lot company, and go into +something respectable. + +This is the way we worked our scheme. First, I figured it out by a kind +of a proverb. The best grafts in the world are built up on copy-book +maxims and psalms and proverbs and Esau's fables. They seem to kind of +hit off human nature. Our peaceful little swindle was constructed on +the old saying: "The whole push loves a lover." + +One evening Buck and Miss Malloy drives up like blazes in a buggy to +a farmer's door. She is pale but affectionate, clinging to his arm-- +always clinging to his arm. Any one can see that she is a peach and +of the cling variety. They claim they are eloping for to be married +on account of cruel parents. They ask where they can find a preacher. +Farmer says, "B'gum there ain't any preacher nigher than Reverend +Abels, four miles over on Caney Creek." Farmeress wipes her hand on +her apron and rubbers through her specs. + + +[Illustration: She is a peach and of the cling variety.] + + +Then, lo and look ye! Up the road from the other way jogs Parleyvoo +Pickens in a gig, dressed in black, white necktie, long face, sniffing +his nose, emitting a spurious kind of noise resembling the long meter +doxology. + +"B'jinks!" says farmer, "if thar ain't a preacher now!" + +It transpires that I am Rev. Abijah Green, travelling over to Little +Bethel school-house for to preach next Sunday. + +The young folks will have it they must be married, for pa is pursuing +them with the plow mules and the buckboard. So the Reverend Green, +after hesitating, marries 'em in the farmer's parlor. And farmer +grins, and has in cider, and says "B'gum!" and farmeress sniffles a +bit and pats the bride on the shoulder. And Parleyvoo Pickens, the +wrong reverend, writes out a marriage certificate, and farmer and +farmeress sign it as witnesses. And the parties of the first, second +and third part gets in their vehicles and rides away. Oh, that was an +idyllic graft! True love and the lowing kine and the sun shining on +the red barns--it certainly had all other impostures I know about beat +to a batter. + + +[So the Reverend Green, after hesitations, marries 'em in the +farmer's parlor.] + + +I suppose I happened along in time to marry Buck and Miss Malloy at +about twenty farm-houses. I hated to think how the romance was going +to fade later on when all them marriage certificates turned up in +banks where we'd discounted 'em, and the farmers had to pay them notes +of hand they'd signed, running from $300 to $500. + +On the 15th day of May us three divided about $6,000. Miss Malloy +nearly cried with joy. You don't often see a tenderhearted girl or one +that is bent on doing right. + + +[Illustration: On the 15th day of May us three divided about $6,000.] + + +"Boys," says she, dabbing her eyes with a little handkerchief, "this +stake comes in handier than a powder rag at a fat men's ball. It gives +me a chance to reform. I was trying to get out of the real estate +business when you fellows came along. But if you hadn't taken me in on +this neat little proposition for removing the cuticle of the rutabaga +propagators I'm afraid I'd have got into something worse. I was about +to accept a place in one of these Women's Auxiliary Bazars, where +they build a parsonage by selling a spoonful of chicken salad and a +cream-puff for seventy-five cents and calling it a Business Man's Lunch. + +"Now I can go into a square, honest business, and give all them queer +jobs the shake. I'm going to Cincinnati and start a palm reading and +clairvoyant joint. As Madame Saramaloi, the Egyptian Sorceress, I +shall give everybody a dollar's worth of good honest prognostication. +Good-by, boys. Take my advice and go into some decent fake. Get +friendly with the police and newspapers and you'll be all right." + +So then we all shook hands, and Miss Malloy left us. Me and Buck also +rose up and sauntered off a few hundred miles; for we didn't care to +be around when them marriage certificates fell due. + +With about $4,000 between us we hit that bumptious little town off the +New Jersey coast they call New York. + +If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that +Yaptown-on-the-Hudson. Cosmopolitan they call it. You bet. So's a piece +of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull +their feet out of the sticky stuff. "Little old New York's good enough +for us"--that's what they sing. + +There's enough Reubs walk down Broadway in one hour to buy up a +week's output of the factory in Augusta, Maine, that makes Knaughty +Knovelties and the little Phine Phun oroide gold finger ring that +sticks a needle in your friend's hand. + +You'd think New York people was all wise; but no. They don't get a +chance to learn. Everything's too compressed. Even the hayseeds are +baled hayseeds. But what else can you expect from a town that's shut +off from the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the +other? + +It's no place for an honest grafter with a small capital. There's too +big a protective tariff on bunco. Even when Giovanni sells a quart +of warm worms and chestnut hulls he has to hand out a pint to an +insectivorous cop. And the hotel man charges double for everything in +the bill that he sends by the patrol wagon to the altar where the duke +is about to marry the heiress. + +But old Badville-near-Coney is the ideal burg for a refined piece of +piracy if you can pay the bunco duty. Imported grafts come pretty +high. The custom-house officers that look after it carry clubs, and +it's hard to smuggle in even a bib-and-tucker swindle to work Brooklyn +with unless you can pay the toll. But now, me and Buck, having +capital, descends upon New York to try and trade the metropolitan +backwoodsmen a few glass beads for real estate just as the Vans did a +hundred or two years ago. + +At an East Side hotel we gets acquainted with Romulus G. Atterbury, a +man with the finest head for financial operations I ever saw. It was +all bald and glossy except for gray side whiskers. Seeing that head +behind an office railing, and you'd deposit a million with it without +a receipt. This Atterbury was well dressed, though he ate seldom; and +the synopsis of his talk would make the conversation of a siren sound +like a cab driver's kick. He said he used to be a member of the Stock +Exchange, but some of the big capitalists got jealous and formed a +ring that forced him to sell his seat. + +Atterbury got to liking me and Buck and he begun to throw on the +canvas for us some of the schemes that had caused his hair to +evacuate. He had one scheme for starting a National bank on $45 that +made the Mississippi Bubble look as solid as a glass marble. He talked +this to us for three days, and when his throat was good and sore we +told him about the roll we had. Atterbury borrowed a quarter from us +and went out and got a box of throat lozenges and started all over +again. This time he talked bigger things, and he got us to see 'em +as he did. The scheme he laid out looked like a sure winner, and he +talked me and Buck into putting our capital against his burnished dome +of thought. It looked all right for a kid-gloved graft. It seemed to +be just about an inch and a half outside of the reach of the police, +and as money-making as a mint. It was just what me and Buck wanted--a +regular business at a permanent stand, with an open air spieling with +tonsilitis on the street corners every evening. + +So, in six weeks you see a handsome furnished set of offices down +in the Wall Street neighborhood, with "The Golconda Gold Bond and +Investment Company" in gilt letters on the door. And you see in his +private room, with the door open, the secretary and treasurer, Mr. +Buckingham Skinner, costumed like the lilies of the conservatory, with +his high silk hat close to his hand. Nobody yet ever saw Buck outside +of an instantaneous reach for his hat. + +And you might perceive the president and general manager, Mr. R. G. +Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office +room dictating letters to a shorthand countess, who has got pomp and a +pompadour that is no less than a guarantee to investors. + + +[Illustration: Busy in the main office room dictating letters +to a shorthand countess.] + + +There is a bookkeeper and an assistant, and a general atmosphere of +varnish and culpability. + +At another desk the eye is relieved by the sight of an ordinary man, +attired with unscrupulous plainness, sitting with his feet up, eating +apples, with his obnoxious hat on the back of his head. That man +is no other than Colonel Tecumseh (once "Parleyvoo") Pickens, the +vice-president of the company. + +"No recherche rags for me," I says to Atterbury, when we was +organizing the stage properties of the robbery. "I'm a plain man," +says I, "and I do not use pajamas, French, or military hair-brushes. +Cast me for the role of the rhinestone-in-the-rough or I don't go on +exhibition. If you can use me in my natural, though displeasing form, +do so." + +"Dress you up?" says Atterbury; "I should say not! Just as you are +you're worth more to the business than a whole roomful of the things +they pin chrysanthemums on. You're to play the part of the solid but +disheveled capitalist from the Far West. You despise the conventions. +You've got so many stocks you can afford to shake socks. Conservative, +homely, rough, shrewd, saving--that's your pose. It's a winner in New +York. Keep your feet on the desk and eat apples. Whenever anybody +comes in eat an apple. Let 'em see you stuff the peelings in a drawer +of your desk. Look as economical and rich and rugged as you can." + +I followed out Atterbury's instructions. I played the Rocky Mountain +capitalist without ruching or frills. The way I deposited apple +peelings to my credit in a drawer when any customers came in made +Hetty Green look like a spendthrift. I could hear Atterbury saying to +victims, as he smiled at me, indulgent and venerating, "That's our +vice-president, Colonel Pickens . . . fortune in Western investments +. . . delightfully plain manners, but . . . could sign his check for +half a million . . . simple as a child . . . wonderful head . . . +conservative and careful almost to a fault." + + +[Illustration: "That's our vice-president, Colonel Pickens."] + + +Atterbury managed the business. Me and Buck never quite understood all +of it, though he explained it to us in full. It seems the company was +a kind of cooperative one, and everybody that bought stock shared in +the profits. First, we officers bought up a controlling interest--we +had to have that--of the shares at 50 cents a hundred--just what the +printer charged us--and the rest went to the public at a dollar each. +The company guaranteed the stockholders a profit of ten per cent. each +month, payable on the last day thereof. + +When any stockholder had paid in as much as $100, the company issued +him a Gold Bond and he became a bondholder. I asked Atterbury one day +what benefits and appurtenances these Gold Bonds was to an investor +more so than the immunities and privileges enjoyed by the common +sucker who only owned stock. Atterbury picked up one of them Gold +Bonds, all gilt and lettered up with flourishes and a big red seal +tied with a blue ribbon in a bowknot, and he looked at me like his +feelings was hurt. + +"My dear Colonel Pickens," says he, "you have no soul for Art. Think +of a thousand homes made happy by possessing one of these beautiful +gems of the lithographer's skill! Think of the joy in the household +where one of these Gold Bonds hangs by a pink cord to the what-not, or +is chewed by the baby, caroling gleefully upon the floor! Ah, I see +your eye growing moist, Colonel--I have touched you, have I not?" + +"You have not," says I, "for I've been watching you. The moisture +you see is apple juice. You can't expect one man to act as a human +cider-press and an art connoisseur too." + +Atterbury attended to the details of the concern. As I understand it, +they was simple. The investors in stock paid in their money, and-- +well, I guess that's all they had to do. The company received it, and +--I don't call to mind anything else. Me and Buck knew more about +selling corn salve than we did about Wall Street, but even we could +see how the Golconda Gold Bond Investment Company was making money. +You take in money and pay back ten per cent. of it; it's plain enough +that you make a clean, legitimate profit of 90 per cent., less +expenses, as long as the fish bite. + +Atterbury wanted to be president and treasurer too, but Buck winks an +eye at him and says: "You was to furnish the brains. Do you call it +good brain work when you propose to take in money at the door, too? +Think again. I hereby nominate myself treasurer ad valorem, sine +die, and by acclamation. I chip in that much brain work free. Me and +Pickens, we furnished the capital, and we'll handle the unearned +increment as it incremates." + +It costs us $500 for office rent and first payment on furniture; +$1,500 more went for printing and advertising. Atterbury knew his +business. "Three months to a minute we'll last," says he. "A day +longer than that and we'll have to either go under or go under an +alias. By that time we ought to clean up $60,000. And then a money +belt and a lower berth for me, and the yellow journals and the +furniture men can pick the bones." + +Our ads. done the work. "Country weeklies and Washington hand-press +dailies, of course," says I when we was ready to make contracts. + +"Man," says Atterbury, "as its advertising manager you would cause a +Limburger cheese factory to remain undiscovered during a hot summer. +The game we're after is right here in New York and Brooklyn and the +Harlem reading-rooms. They're the people that the street-car fenders +and the Answers to Correspondents columns and the pickpocket notices +are made for. We want our ads. in the biggest city dailies, top of +column, next to editorials on radium and pictures of the girl doing +health exercises." + +Pretty soon the money begins to roll in. Buck didn't have to pretend +to be busy; his desk was piled high up with money orders and checks +and greenbacks. People began to drop in the office and buy stock every +day. + +Most of the shares went in small amounts--$10 and $25 and $50, and +a good many $2 and $3 lots. And the bald and inviolate cranium of +President Atterbury shines with enthusiasm and demerit, while Colonel +Tecumseh Pickens, the rude but reputable Croesus of the West, consumes +so many apples that the peelings hang to the floor from the mahogany +garbage chest that he calls his desk. + +Just as Atterbury said, we ran along about three months without being +troubled. Buck cashed the paper as fast as it came in and kept the +money in a safe deposit vault a block or so away. Buck never thought +much of banks for such purposes. We paid the interest regular on the +stock we'd sold, so there was nothing for anybody to squeal about. We +had nearly $50,000 on hand and all three of us had been living as high +as prize fighters out of training. + +One morning, as me and Buck sauntered into the office, fat and +flippant, from our noon grub, we met an easy-looking fellow, with a +bright eye and a pipe in his mouth, coming out. We found Atterbury +looking like he'd been caught a mile from home in a wet shower. + +"Know that man?" he asked us. + +We said we didn't. + +"I don't either," says Atterbury, wiping off his head; "but I'll bet +enough Gold Bonds to paper a cell in the Tombs that he's a newspaper +reporter." + +"What did he want?" asks Buck. + +"Information," says our president. "Said he was thinking of buying +some stock. He asked me about nine hundred questions, and every one +of 'em hit some sore place in the business. I know he's on a paper. +You can't fool me. You see a man about half shabby, with an eye like +a gimlet, smoking cut plug, with dandruff on his coat collar, and +knowing more than J. P. Morgan and Shakespeare put together--if that +ain't a reporter I never saw one. I was afraid of this. I don't mind +detectives and post-office inspectors--I talk to 'em eight minutes and +then sell 'em stock--but them reporters take the starch out of my +collar. Boys, I recommend that we declare a dividend and fade away. +The signs point that way." + +Me and Buck talked to Atterbury and got him to stop sweating and stand +still. That fellow didn't look like a reporter to us. Reporters always +pull out a pencil and tablet on you, and tell you a story you've +heard, and strikes you for the drinks. But Atterbury was shaky and +nervous all day. + +The next day me and Buck comes down from the hotel about ten-thirty. +On the way we buys the papers, and the first thing we see is a column +on the front page about our little imposition. It was a shame the way +that reporter intimated that we were no blood relatives of the late +George W. Childs. He tells all about the scheme as he sees it, in a +rich, racy kind of a guying style that might amuse most anybody except +a stockholder. Yes, Atterbury was right; it behooveth the gaily clad +treasurer and the pearly pated president and the rugged vice-president +of the Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company to go away real +sudden and quick that their days might be longer upon the land. + +Me and Buck hurries down to the office. We finds on the stairs and in +the hall a crowd of people trying to squeeze into our office, which is +already jammed full inside to the railing. They've nearly all got +Golconda stock and Gold Bonds in their hands. Me and Buck judged +they'd been reading the papers, too. + +We stopped and looked at our stockholders, some surprised. It wasn't +quite the kind of a gang we supposed had been investing. They all +looked like poor people; there was plenty of old women and lots of +young girls that you'd say worked in factories and mills. Some was old +men that looked like war veterans, and some was crippled, and a good +many was just kids--bootblacks and newsboys and messengers. Some was +working-men in overalls, with their sleeves rolled up. Not one of the +gang looked like a stockholder in anything unless it was a peanut +stand. But they all had Golconda stock and looked as sick as you +please. + + +[Illustration: But they all had Golconda stock and looked as +sick as you please.] + + +I saw a queer kind of a pale look come on Buck's face when he sized up +the crowd. He stepped up to a sickly looking woman and says: "Madam, +do you own any of this stock?" + +"I put in a hundred dollars," says the woman, faint like. "It was all +I had saved in a year. One of my children is dying at home now and I +haven't a cent in the house. I came to see if I could draw out some. +The circulars said you could draw it at any time. But they say now I +will lose it all." + +There was a smart kind of kid in the gang--I guess he was a newsboy. +"I got in twenty-fi', mister," he says, looking hopeful at Buck's silk +hat and clothes. "Dey paid me two-fifty a mont' on it. Say, a man +tells me dey can't do dat and be on de square. Is dat straight? Do you +guess I can get out my twenty-fi'?" + +Some of the old women was crying. The factory girls was plumb +distracted. They'd lost all their savings and they'd be docked for the +time they lost coming to see about it. + +There was one girl--a pretty one--in a red shawl, crying in a corner +like her heart would dissolve. Buck goes over and asks her about it. + +"It ain't so much losing the money, mister," says she, shaking all +over, "though I've been two years saving it up; but Jakey won't marry +me now. He'll take Rosa Steinfeld. I know J--J--Jakey. She's got $400 +in the savings bank. Ai, ai, ai--" she sings out. + + +[Illustration: "Jakey won't marry me now. He'll take Rosa Steinfeld."] + + +Buck looks all around with that same funny look on his face. And then +we see leaning against the wall, puffing at his pipe, with his eye +shining at us, this newspaper reporter. Buck and me walks over to him. + +"You're a real interesting writer," says Buck. "How far do you mean to +carry it? Anything more up your sleeve?" + +"Oh, I'm just waiting around," says the reporter, smoking away, "in +case any news turns up. It's up to your stockholders now. Some of +them might complain, you know. Isn't that the patrol wagon now?" he +says, listening to a sound outside. "No," he goes on, "that's Doc. +Whittleford's old cadaver coupe from the Roosevelt. I ought to know +that gong. Yes, I suppose I've written some interesting stuff at +times." + +"You wait," says Buck; "I'm going to throw an item of news in your +way." + +Buck reaches in his pocket and hands me a key. I knew what he meant +before he spoke. Confounded old buccaneer--I knew what he meant. They +don't make them any better than Buck. + +"Pick," says he, looking at me hard, "ain't this graft a little out of +our line? Do we want Jakey to marry Rosa Steinfeld?" + +"You've got my vote," says I. "I'll have it here in ten minutes." And +I starts for the safe deposit vaults. + +I comes back with the money done up in a big bundle, and then Buck and +me takes the journalist reporter around to another door and we let +ourselves into one of the office rooms. + +"Now, my literary friend," says Buck, "take a chair, and keep still, +and I'll give you an interview. You see before you two grafters from +Graftersville, Grafter County, Arkansas. Me and Pick have sold brass +jewelry, hair tonic, song books, marked cards, patent medicines, +Connecticut Smyrna rugs, furniture polish, and albums in every town +from Old Point Comfort to the Golden Gate. We've grafted a dollar +whenever we saw one that had a surplus look to it. But we never went +after the simoleon in the toe of the sock under the loose brick in the +corner of the kitchen hearth. There's an old saying you may have heard +--'fussily decency averni'--which means it's an easy slide from the +street faker's dry goods box to a desk in Wall Street. We've took that +slide, but we didn't know exactly what was at the bottom of it. Now, +you ought to be wise, but you ain't. You've got New York wiseness, +which means that you judge a man by the outside of his clothes. +That ain't right. You ought to look at the lining and seams and the +button-holes. While we are waiting for the patrol wagon you might get +out your little stub pencil and take notes for another funny piece in +the paper." + +And then Buck turns to me and says: "I don't care what Atterbury +thinks. He only put in brains, and if he gets his capital out he's +lucky. But what do you say, Pick?" + +"Me?" says I. "You ought to know me, Buck. I didn't know who was +buying the stock." + +"All right," says Buck. And then he goes through the inside door into +the main office and looks at the gang trying to squeeze through the +railing. Atterbury and his hat was gone. And Buck makes 'em a short +speech. + +"All you lambs get in line. You're going to get your wool back. Don't +shove so. Get in a line--a _line_--not in a pile. Lady, will you +please stop bleating? Your money's waiting for you. Here, sonny, +don't climb over that railing; your dimes are safe. Don't cry, sis; +you ain't out a cent. Get in _line_, I say. Here, Pick, come and +straighten 'em out and let 'em through and out by the other door." + +Buck takes off his coat, pushes his silk hat on the back of his head, +and lights up a reina victoria. He sets at the table with the boodle +before him, all done up in neat packages. I gets the stockholders +strung out and marches 'em, single file, through from the main room; +and the reporter man passes 'em out of the side door into the hall +again. As they go by, Buck takes up the stock and the Gold Bonds, +paying 'em cash, dollar for dollar, the same as they paid in. The +shareholders of the Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company can't +hardly believe it. They almost grabs the money out of Buck's hands. +Some of the women keep on crying, for it's a custom of the sex to cry +when they have sorrow, to weep when they have joy, and to shed tears +whenever they find themselves without either. + + +[Illustration: The shareholders of the Golconda Gold Bond and +Investment Company can't hardly believe it.] + + +The old women's fingers shake when they stuff the skads in the bosom +of their rusty dresses. The factory girls just stoop over and flap +their dry goods a second, and you hear the elastic go "pop" as the +currency goes down in the ladies' department of the "Old Domestic +Lisle-Thread Bank." + +Some of the stockholders that had been doing the Jeremiah act the +loudest outside had spasms of restored confidence and wanted to leave +the money invested. "Salt away that chicken feed in your duds, and +skip along," says Buck. "What business have you got investing in +bonds? The tea-pot or the crack in the wall behind the clock for your +hoard of pennies." + +When the pretty girl in the red shawl cashes in Buck hands her an +extra twenty. + +"A wedding present," says our treasurer, "from the Golconda Company. +And say--if Jakey ever follows his nose, even at a respectful +distance, around the corner where Rosa Steinfeld lives, you are hereby +authorized to knock a couple of inches of it off." + +When they was all paid off and gone, Buck calls the newspaper reporter +and shoves the rest of the money over to him. + +"You begun this," says Buck; "now finish it. Over there are the books, +showing every share and bond issued. Here's the money to cover, except +what we've spent to live on. You'll have to act as receiver. I guess +you'll do the square thing on account of your paper. This is the best +way we know how to settle it. Me and our substantial but apple-weary +vice-president are going to follow the example of our revered +president, and skip. Now, have you got enough news for to-day, or do +you want to interview us on etiquette and the best way to make over an +old taffeta skirt?" + +"News!" says the newspaper man, taking his pipe out; "do you think I +could use this? I don't want to lose my job. Suppose I go around to +the office and tell 'em this happened. What'll the managing editor +say? He'll just hand me a pass to Bellevue and tell me to come back +when I get cured. I might turn in a story about a sea serpent wiggling +up Broadway, but I haven't got the nerve to try 'em with a pipe like +this. A get-rich-quick scheme--excuse me--gang giving back the boodle! +Oh, no. I'm not on the comic supplement." + +"You can't understand it, of course," says Buck, with his hand on the +door knob. "Me and Pick ain't Wall Streeters like you know 'em. We +never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take +nickels off of kids. In the lines of graft we've worked we took money +from the people the Lord made to be buncoed--sports and rounders and +smart Alecks and street crowds, that always have a few dollars to +throw away, and farmers that wouldn't ever be happy if the grafters +didn't come around and play with 'em when they sold their crops. We +never cared to fish for the kind of suckers that bite here. No, sir. +We got too much respect for the profession and for ourselves. Good-by +to you, Mr. Receiver." + +"Here!" says the journalist reporter; "wait a minute. There's a broker +I know on the next floor. Wait till I put this truck in his safe. I +want you fellows to take a drink on me before you go." + +"On you?" says Buck, winking solemn. "Don't you go and try to make 'em +believe at the office you said that. Thanks. We can't spare the time, +I reckon. So long." + +And me and Buck slides out the door; and that's the way the Golconda +Company went into involuntary liquefaction. + +If you had seen me and Buck the next night you'd have had to go to a +little bum hotel over near the West Side ferry landings. We was in a +little back room, and I was filling up a gross of six-ounce bottles +with hydrant water colored red with aniline and flavored with +cinnamon. Buck was smoking, contented, and he wore a decent brown +derby in place of his silk hat. + +"It's a good thing, Pick," says he, as he drove in the corks, "that we +got Brady to lend us his horse and wagon for a week. We'll rustle up +the stake by then. This hair tonic'll sell right along over in Jersey. +Bald heads ain't popular over there on account of the mosquitoes." + +Directly I dragged out my valise and went down in it for labels. + +"Hair tonic labels are out," says I. "Only about a dozen on hand." + +"Buy some more," says Buck. + +We investigated our pockets and found we had just enough money to +settle our hotel bill in the morning and pay our passage over the +ferry. + +"Plenty of the 'Shake-the-Shakes Chill Cure' labels," says I, after +looking. + +"What more do you want?" says Buck. "Slap 'em on. The chill season is +just opening up in the Hackensack low grounds. What's hair, anyway, if +you have to shake it off?" + +We pasted on the Chill Cure labels about half an hour and Buck says: + +"Making an honest livin's better than that Wall Street, anyhow; ain't +it, Pick?" + +"You bet," says I. + + + + +HOSTAGES TO MOMUS + + +I + +I never got inside of the legitimate line of graft but once. But, one +time, as I say, I reversed the decision of the revised statutes and +undertook a thing that I'd have to apologize for even under the New +Jersey trust laws. + +Me and Caligula Polk, of Muskogee in the Creek Nation, was down in the +Mexican State of Tamaulipas running a peripatetic lottery and monte +game. Now, selling lottery tickets is a government graft in Mexico, +just like selling forty-eight cents' worth of postage-stamps for +forty-nine cents is over here. So Uncle Porfirio he instructs the +_rurales_ to attend to our case. + +_Rurales_? They're a sort of country police; but don't draw any mental +crayon portraits of the worthy constables with a tin star and a gray +goatee. The _rurales_--well, if we'd mount our Supreme Court on +broncos, arm 'em with Winchesters, and start 'em out after John Doe +_et al_. we'd have about the same thing. + +When the _rurales_ started for us we started for the States. They +chased us as far as Matamoras. We hid in a brickyard; and that night we +swum the Rio Grande, Caligula with a brick in each hand, absent-minded, +which he drops upon the soil of Texas, forgetting he had 'em. + +From there we emigrated to San Antone, and then over to New Orleans, +where we took a rest. And in that town of cotton bales and other +adjuncts to female beauty we made the acquaintance of drinks invented +by the Creoles during the period of Louey Cans, in which they are +still served at the side doors. The most I can remember of this town +is that me and Caligula and a Frenchman named McCarty--wait a minute; +Adolph McCarty--was trying to make the French Quarter pay up the back +trading-stamps due on the Louisiana Purchase, when somebody hollers +that the johndarms are coming. I have an insufficient recollection of +buying two yellow tickets through a window; and I seemed to see a man +swing a lantern and say "All aboard!" I remembered no more, except +that the train butcher was covering me and Caligula up with Augusta J. +Evans's works and figs. + +When we become revised, we find that we have collided up against the +State of Georgia at a spot hitherto unaccounted for in time tables +except by an asterisk, which means that trains stop every other +Thursday on signal by tearing up a rail. We was waked up in a yellow +pine hotel by the noise of flowers and the smell of birds. Yes, sir, +for the wind was banging sunflowers as big as buggy wheels against the +weatherboarding and the chicken coop was right under the window. Me +and Caligula dressed and went down-stairs. The landlord was shelling +peas on the front porch. He was six feet of chills and fever, and +Hongkong in complexion though in other respects he seemed amenable in +the exercise of his sentiments and features. + +Caligula, who is a spokesman by birth, and a small man, though +red-haired and impatient of painfulness of any kind, speaks up. + +"Pardner," says he, "good-morning, and be darned to you. Would you +mind telling us why we are at? We know the reason we are where, but +can't exactly figure out on account of at what place." + +"Well, gentlemen," says the landlord, "I reckoned you-all would be +inquiring this morning. You-all dropped off of the nine-thirty train +here last night; and you was right tight. Yes, you was right smart +in liquor. I can inform you that you are now in the town of Mountain +Valley, in the State of Georgia." + +"On top of that," says Caligula, "don't say that we can't have +anything to eat." + +"Sit down, gentlemen," says the landlord, "and in twenty minutes I'll +call you to the best breakfast you can get anywhere in town." + +That breakfast turned out to be composed of fried bacon and a +yellowish edifice that proved up something between pound cake and +flexible sandstone. The landlord calls it corn pone; and then he sets +out a dish of the exaggerated breakfast food known as hominy; and so +me and Caligula makes the acquaintance of the celebrated food that +enabled every Johnny Reb to lick one and two-thirds Yankees for nearly +four years at a stretch. + +"The wonder to me is," says Caligula, "that Uncle Robert Lee's boys +didn't chase the Grant and Sherman outfit clear up into Hudson's Bay. +It would have made me that mad to eat this truck they call mahogany!" + +"Hog and hominy," I explains, "is the staple food of this section." + +"Then," says Caligula, "they ought to keep it where it belongs. I +thought this was a hotel and not a stable. Now, if we was in Muskogee +at the St. Lucifer House, I'd show you some breakfast grub. Antelope +steaks and fried liver to begin on, and venison cutlets with _chili +con carne_ and pineapple fritters, and then some sardines and mixed +pickles; and top it off with a can of yellow clings and a bottle of +beer. You won't find a layout like that on the bill of affairs of any +of your Eastern restauraws." + +"Too lavish," says I. "I've traveled, and I'm unprejudiced. There'll +never be a perfect breakfast eaten until some man grows arms long +enough to stretch down to New Orleans for his coffee and over to +Norfolk for his rolls, and reaches up to Vermont and digs a slice of +butter out of a spring-house, and then turns over a beehive close to a +white clover patch out in Indiana for the rest. Then he'd come pretty +close to making a meal on the amber that the gods eat on Mount +Olympia." + +"Too ephemeral," says Caligula. "I'd want ham and eggs, or rabbit +stew, anyhow, for a chaser. What do you consider the most edifying and +casual in the way of a dinner?" + +"I've been infatuated from time to time," I answers, "with fancy +ramifications of grub such as terrapins, lobsters, reed birds, +jambolaya, and canvas-covered ducks; but after all there's nothing +less displeasing to me than a beefsteak smothered in mushrooms on +a balcony in sound of the Broadway streetcars, with a hand-organ +playing down below, and the boys hollering extras about the latest +suicide. For the wine, give me a reasonable Ponty Cany. And that's +all, except a _demi-tasse_." + +"Well," says Caligula, "I reckon in New York you get to be a +conniseer; and when you go around with the _demi-tasse_ you are +naturally bound to buy 'em stylish grub." + +"It's a great town for epicures," says I. "You'd soon fall into their +ways if you was there." + +"I've heard it was," says Caligula. "But I reckon I wouldn't. I can +polish my fingernails all they need myself." + + + +II + +After breakfast we went out on the front porch, lighted up two of the +landlord's _flor de upas_ perfectos, and took a look at Georgia. + +The installment of scenery visible to the eye looked mighty poor. As +far as we could see was red hills all washed down with gullies and +scattered over with patches of piny woods. Blackberry bushes was all +that kept the rail fences from falling down. About fifteen miles over +to the north was a little range of well-timbered mountains. + +That town of Mountain Valley wasn't going. About a dozen people +permeated along the sidewalks; but what you saw mostly was rain-barrels +and roosters, and boys poking around with sticks in piles of ashes made +by burning the scenery of Uncle Tom shows. + +And just then there passes down on the other side of the street a high +man in a long black coat and a beaver hat. All the people in sight +bowed, and some crossed the street to shake hands with him; folks came +out of stores and houses to holler at him; women leaned out of windows +and smiled; and all the kids stopped playing to look at him. Our +landlord stepped out on the porch and bent himself double like a +carpenter's rule, and sung out, "Good-morning, Colonel," when he was a +dozen yards gone by. + +"And is that Alexander, pa?" says Caligula to the landlord; "and why +is he called great?" + +"That, gentlemen," says the landlord, "is no less than Colonel Jackson +T. Rockingham, the president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, +mayor of Mountain Valley, and chairman of the Perry County board of +immigration and public improvements." + +"Been away a good many years, hasn't he?" I asked. + +"No, sir; Colonel Rockingham is going down to the post-office for his +mail. His fellow-citizens take pleasure in greeting him thus every +morning. The colonel is our most prominent citizen. Besides the +height of the stock of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, he owns +a thousand acres of that land across the creek. Mountain Valley +delights, sir, to honor a citizen of such worth and public spirit." + +For an hour that afternoon Caligula sat on the back of his neck on the +porch and studied a newspaper, which was unusual in a man who despised +print. When he was through he took me to the end of the porch among +the sunlight and drying dish-towels. I knew that Caligula had invented +a new graft. For he chewed the ends of his mustache and ran the left +catch of his suspenders up and down, which was his way. + +"What is it now?" I asks. "Just so it ain't floating mining stocks or +raising Pennsylvania pinks, we'll talk it over." + +"Pennsylvania pinks? Oh, that refers to a coin-raising scheme of the +Keystoners. They burn the soles of old women's feet to make them tell +where their money's hid." + +Caligula's words in business was always few and bitter. + +"You see them mountains," said he, pointing. "And you seen that +colonel man that owns railroads and cuts more ice when he goes to the +post-office than Roosevelt does when he cleans 'em out. What we're +going to do is to kidnap the latter into the former, and inflict a +ransom of ten thousand dollars." + +"Illegality," says I, shaking my head. + +"I knew you'd say that," says Caligula. "At first sight it does seem +to jar peace and dignity. But it don't. I got the idea out of that +newspaper. Would you commit aspersions on a equitable graft that the +United States itself has condoned and indorsed and ratified?" + +"Kidnapping," says I, "is an immoral function in the derogatory list +of the statutes. If the United States upholds it, it must be a recent +enactment of ethics, along with race suicide and rural delivery." + +"Listen," says Caligula, "and I'll explain the case set down in the +papers. Here was a Greek citizen named Burdick Harris," says he, +"captured for a graft by Africans; and the United States sends two +gunboats to the State of Tangiers and makes the King of Morocco give +up seventy thousand dollars to Raisuli." + +"Go slow," says I. "That sounds too international to take in all at +once. It's like 'thimble, thimble, who's got the naturalization +papers?'" + +"'Twas press despatches from Constantinople," says Caligula. "You'll +see, six months from now. They'll be confirmed by the monthly magazines; +and then it won't be long till you'll notice 'em alongside the photos +of the Mount Pelee eruption photos in the while-you-get-your-hair-cut +weeklies. It's all right, Pick. This African man Raisuli hides Burdick +Harris up in the mountains, and advertises his price to the governments +of different nations. Now, you wouldn't think for a minute," goes on +Caligula, "that John Hay would have chipped in and helped this graft +along if it wasn't a square game, would you?" + +"Why, no," says I. "I've always stood right in with Bryan's policies, +and I couldn't consciously say a word against the Republican +administration just now. But if Harris was a Greek, on what system of +international protocols did Hay interfere?" + +"It ain't exactly set forth in the papers," says Caligula. "I suppose +it's a matter of sentiment. You know he wrote this poem, 'Little +Breeches'; and them Greeks wear little or none. But anyhow, John Hay +sends the Brooklyn and the Olympia over, and they cover Africa with +thirty-inch guns. And then Hay cables after the health of the _persona +grata_. 'And how are they this morning?' he wires. 'Is Burdick Harris +alive yet, or Mr. Raisuli dead?' And the King of Morocco sends up the +seventy thousand dollars, and they turn Burdick Harris loose. And +there's not half the hard feelings among the nations about this little +kidnapping matter as there was about the peace congress. And Burdick +Harris says to the reporters, in the Greek language, that he's often +heard about the United States, and he admires Roosevelt next to +Raisuli, who is one of the whitest and most gentlemanly kidnappers +that he ever worked alongside of. So you see, Pick," winds up +Caligula, "we've got the law of nations on our side. We'll cut this +colonel man out of the herd, and corral him in them little mountains, +and stick up his heirs and assigns for ten thousand dollars." + +"Well, you seldom little red-headed territorial terror," I answers, +"you can't bluff your uncle Tecumseh Pickens! I'll be your company in +this graft. But I misdoubt if you've absorbed the inwardness of this +Burdick Harris case, Calig; and if on any morning we get a telegram +from the Secretary of State asking about the health of the scheme, +I propose to acquire the most propinquitous and celeritous mule in +this section and gallop diplomatically over into the neighboring and +peaceful nation of Alabama." + + + +III + +Me and Caligula spent the next three days investigating the bunch +of mountains into which we proposed to kidnap Colonel Jackson T. +Rockingham. We finally selected an upright slice of topography covered +with bushes and trees that you could only reach by a secret path that +we cut out up the side of it. And the only way to reach the mountain +was to follow up the bend of a branch that wound among the elevations. + +Then I took in hand an important subdivision of the +proceedings. I went up to Atlanta on the train and laid in a +two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar supply of the most gratifying and +efficient lines of grub that money could buy. I always was an admirer +of viands in their more palliative and revised stages. Hog and hominy +are not only inartistic to my stomach, but they give indigestion to +my moral sentiments. And I thought of Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham, +president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, and how he would +miss the luxury of his home fare as is so famous among wealthy +Southerners. So I sunk half of mine and Caligula's capital in as +elegant a layout of fresh and canned provisions as Burdick Harris or +any other professional kidnappee ever saw in a camp. + +I put another hundred in a couple of cases of Bordeaux, two quarts +of cognac, two hundred Havana regalias with gold bands, and a camp +stove and stools and folding cots. I wanted Colonel Rockingham to be +comfortable; and I hoped after he gave up the ten thousand dollars +he would give me and Caligula as good a name for gentlemen and +entertainers as the Greek man did the friend of his that made the +United States his bill collector against Africa. + +When the goods came down from Atlanta, we hired a wagon, moved them up +on the little mountain, and established camp. And then we laid for the +colonel. + +We caught him one morning about two miles out from Mountain Valley, +on his way to look after some of his burnt umber farm land. He was an +elegant old gentleman, as thin and tall as a trout rod, with frazzled +shirt-cuffs and specs on a black string. We explained to him, brief +and easy, what we wanted; and Caligula showed him, careless, the +handle of his forty-five under his coat. + +"What?" says Colonel Rockingham. "Bandits in Perry County, Georgia! I +shall see that the board of immigration and public improvements hears +of this!" + +"Be so unfoolhardy as to climb into that buggy," says Caligula, "by +order of the board of perforation and public depravity. This is a +business meeting, and we're anxious to adjourn _sine qua non_." + +We drove Colonel Rockingham over the mountain and up the side of it +as far as the buggy could go. Then we tied the horse, and took our +prisoner on foot up to the camp. + +"Now, colonel," I says to him, "we're after the ransom, me and my +partner; and no harm will come to you if the King of Mor--if your +friends send up the dust. In the mean time we are gentlemen the same +as you. And if you give us your word not to try to escape, the freedom +of the camp is yours." + +"I give you my word," says the colonel. + +"All right," says I; "and now it's eleven o'clock, and me and Mr. Polk +will proceed to inculcate the occasion with a few well-timed +trivialities in the way of grub." + +"Thank you," says the colonel; "I believe I could relish a slice of +bacon and a plate of hominy." + +"But you won't," says I emphatic. "Not in this camp. We soar in higher +regions than them occupied by your celebrated but repulsive dish." + +While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats +and went in for a little luncheon _de luxe_ just to show him. Caligula +was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a buffalo or +fricassee a couple of steers as easy as a woman could make a cup of +tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste +and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west +of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling +venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth +at the same time. But I could do things _en casserole_ and _a la +creole_, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a +French _chef_. + +So at twelve o'clock we had a hot lunch ready that looked like a +banquet on a Mississippi River steamboat. We spread it on the tops of +two or three big boxes, opened two quarts of the red wine, set the +olives and a canned oyster cocktail and a ready-made Martini by the +colonel's plate, and called him to grub. + +Colonel Rockingham drew up his campstool, wiped off his specs, and +looked at the things on the table. Then I thought he was swearing; and +I felt mean because I hadn't taken more pains with the victuals. But +he wasn't; he was asking a blessing; and me and Caligula hung our +heads, and I saw a tear drop from the colonel's eye into his cocktail. + +I never saw a man eat with so much earnestness and application--not +hastily, like a grammarian, or one of the canal, but slow and +appreciative, like a anaconda, or a real _vive bonjour_. + +In an hour and a half the colonel leaned back. I brought him a pony of +brandy and his black coffee, and set the box of Havana regalias on the +table. + +"Gentlemen," says he, blowing out the smoke and trying to breathe +it back again, "when we view the eternal hills and the smiling and +beneficent landscape, and reflect upon the goodness of the Creator +who--" + +"Excuse me, colonel," says I, "but there's some business to attend to +now"; and I brought out paper and pen and ink and laid 'em before him. +"Who do you want to send to for the money?" I asks. + +"I reckon," says he, after thinking a bit, "to the vice-president of +our railroad, at the general offices of the Company in Edenville." + +"How far is it to Edenville from here?" I asked. + +"About ten miles," says he. + +Then I dictated these lines, and Colonel Rockingham wrote them out: + + + I am kidnapped and held a prisoner by two desperate outlaws + in a place which is useless to attempt to find. They demand + ten thousand dollars at once for my release. The amount must + be raised immediately, and these directions followed. Come + alone with the money to Stony Creek, which runs out of + Blacktop Mountains. Follow the bed of the creek till you + come to a big flat rock on the left bank, on which is marked + a cross in red chalk. Stand on the rock and wave a white + flag. A guide will come to you and conduct you to where I am + held. Lose no time. + + +After the colonel had finished this, he asked permission to take on a +postscript about how he was being treated, so the railroad wouldn't +feel uneasy in its bosom about him. We agreed to that. He wrote down +that he had just had lunch with the two desperate ruffians; and then +he set down the whole bill of fare, from cocktails to coffee. He wound +up with the remark that dinner would be ready about six, and would +probably be a more licentious and intemperate affair than lunch. + +Me and Caligula read it, and decided to let it go; for we, being +cooks, were amenable to praise, though it sounded out of place on a +sight draft for ten thousand dollars. + +I took the letter over to the Mountain Valley road and watched for a +messenger. By and by a colored equestrian came along on horseback, +riding toward Edenville. I gave him a dollar to take the letter to the +railroad offices; and then I went back to camp. + + + +IV + +About four o'clock in the afternoon, Caligula, who was acting as +lookout, calls to me: + +"I have to report a white shirt signalling on the starboard bow, sir." + +I went down the mountain and brought back a fat, red man in an alpaca +coat and no collar. + +"Gentlemen," says Colonel Rockingham, "allow me to introduce my +brother, Captain Duval C. Rockingham, vice-president of the Sunrise & +Edenville Tap Railroad." + +"Otherwise the King of Morocco," says I. "I reckon you don't mind my +counting the ransom, just as a business formality." + +"Well, no, not exactly," says the fat man, "not when it comes. I +turned that matter over to our second vice-president. I was anxious +after Brother Jackson's safetiness. I reckon he'll be along right +soon. What does that lobster salad you mentioned taste like, Brother +Jackson?" + +"Mr. Vice-President," says I, "you'll oblige us by remaining here till +the second V. P. arrives. This is a private rehearsal, and we don't +want any roadside speculators selling tickets." + +In half an hour Caligula sings out again: + +"Sail ho! Looks like an apron on a broomstick." + +I perambulated down the cliff again, and escorted up a man six foot +three, with a sandy beard and no other dimension that you could +notice. Thinks I to myself, if he's got ten thousand dollars on his +person it's in one bill and folded lengthwise. + +"Mr. Patterson G. Coble, our second vice-president," announces the +colonel. + +"Glad to know you, gentlemen," says this Coble. "I came up to +disseminate the tidings that Major Tallahassee Tucker, our general +passenger agent, is now negotiating a peachcrate full of our railroad +bonds with the Perry County Bank for a loan. My dear Colonel +Rockingham, was that chicken gumbo or cracked goobers on the bill of +fare in your note? Me and the conductor of fifty-six was having a +dispute about it." + +"Another white wings on the rocks!" hollers Caligula. "If I see any +more I'll fire on 'em and swear they was torpedo-boats!" + +The guide goes down again, and convoys into the lair a person in blue +overalls carrying an amount of inebriety and a lantern. I am so sure +that this is Major Tucker that I don't even ask him until we are +up above; and then I discover that it is Uncle Timothy, the yard +switchman at Edenville, who is sent ahead to flag our understandings +with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad's attorney, is in +the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham's farming lands to make +up the ransom. + +While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp, +and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty, +draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces +Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman of train number +forty-two. + +"Excuse us," says Batts, "but me and Jim have hunted squirrels +all over this mounting, and we don't need no white flag. Was that +straight, colonel, about the plum pudding and pineapples and real +store cigars?" + +"Towel on a fishing-pole in the offing!" howls Caligula. "Suppose it's +the firing line of the freight conductors and brakeman." + +"My last trip down," says I, wiping off my face. "If the S. & E. T. +wants to run an excursion up here just because we kidnapped their +president, let 'em. We'll put out our sign. 'The Kidnapper's Cafe and +Trainmen's Home.'" + +This time I caught Major Tallahassee Tucker by his own confession, and +I felt easier. I asked him into the creek, so I could drown him if he +happened to be a track-walker or caboose porter. All the way up the +mountain he driveled to me about asparagus on toast, a thing that his +intelligence in life had skipped. + +Up above I got his mind segregated from food and asked if he had +raised the ransom. + +"My dear sir," says he, "I succeeded in negotiating a loan on thirty +thousand dollars' worth of the bonds of our railroad, and--" + +"Never mind just now, major," says I. "It's all right, then. Wait till +after dinner, and we'll settle the business. All of you gentlemen," +I continues to the crowd, "are invited to stay to dinner. We have +mutually trusted one another, and the white flag is supposed to wave +over the proceedings." + +"The correct idea," says Caligula, who was standing by me. "Two +baggage-masters and a ticket-agent dropped out of a tree while you was +below the last time. Did the major man bring the money?" + +"He says," I answered, "that he succeeded in negotiating the loan." + +If any cooks ever earned ten thousand dollars in twelve hours, me +and Caligula did that day. At six o'clock we spread the top of the +mountain with as fine a dinner as the personnel of any railroad ever +engulfed. We opened all the wine, and we concocted entrees and _pieces +de resistance_, and stirred up little savory _chef de cuisines_ and +organized a mass of grub such as has been seldom instigated out of +canned and bottled goods. The railroad gathered around it, and the +wassail and diversions was intense. + +After the feast me and Caligula, in the line of business, takes +Major Tucker to one side and talks ransom. The major pulls out an +agglomeration of currency about the size of the price of a town lot in +the suburbs of Rabbitville, Arizona, and makes this outcry. + +"Gentlemen," says he, "the stock of the Sunrise & Edenville railroad +has depreciated some. The best I could do with thirty thousand +dollars' worth of the bonds was to secure a loan of eighty-seven +dollars and fifty cents. On the farming lands of Colonel Rockingham, +Judge Pendergast was able to obtain, on a ninth mortgage, the sum of +fifty dollars. You will find the amount, one hundred and thirty-seven +fifty, correct." + +"A railroad president," said I, looking this Tucker in the eye, "and +the owner of a thousand acres of land; and yet--" + +"Gentlemen," says Tucker, "The railroad is ten miles long. There don't +any train run on it except when the crew goes out in the pines and +gathers enough lightwood knots to get up steam. A long time ago, when +times was good, the net earnings used to run as high as eighteen +dollars a week. Colonel Rockingham's land has been sold for taxes +thirteen times. There hasn't been a peach crop in this part of Georgia +for two years. The wet spring killed the watermelons. Nobody around +here has money enough to buy fertilizer; and land is so poor the corn +crop failed and there wasn't enough grass to support the rabbits. All +the people have had to eat in this section for over a year is hog and +hominy, and--" + +"Pick," interrupts Caligula, mussing up his red hair, "what are you +going to do with that chicken-feed?" + +I hands the money back to Major Tucker; and then I goes over to +Colonel Rockingham and slaps him on the back. + +"Colonel," says I, "I hope you've enjoyed our little joke. We don't +want to carry it too far. Kidnappers! Well, wouldn't it tickle your +uncle? My name's Rhinegelder, and I'm a nephew of Chauncey Depew. My +friend's a second cousin of the editor of _Puck_. So you can see. We +are down South enjoying ourselves in our humorous way. Now, there's +two quarts of cognac to open yet, and then the joke's over." + +What's the use to go into details? One or two will be enough. I remember +Major Tallahassee Tucker playing on a jew's-harp, and Caligula waltzing +with his head on the watch pocket of a tall baggage-master. I hesitate +to refer to the cake-walk done by me and Mr. Patterson G. Coble with +Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham between us. + +And even on the next morning, when you wouldn't think it possible, +there was a consolation for me and Caligula. We knew that Raisuli +himself never made half the hit with Burdick Harris that we did with +the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad. + + + + +THE ETHICS OF PIG + + +On an east-bound train I went into the smoker and found Jefferson +Peters, the only man with a brain west of the Wabash River who can use +his cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla oblongata at the same time. + +Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded by +widows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favorite +disguise is that of the target-bird at which the spendthrift or the +reckless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars. He is readily +vocalized by tobacco; so, with the aid of two thick and easy-burning +brevas, I got the story of his latest Autolycan adventure. + +"In my line of business," said Jeff, "the hardest thing is to find an +upright, trustworthy, strictly honorable partner to work a graft with. +Some of the best men I ever worked with in a swindle would resort to +trickery at times. + +"So, last summer, I thinks I will go over into this section of country +where I hear the serpent has not yet entered, and see if I can find a +partner naturally gifted with a talent for crime, but not yet +contaminated by success. + +"I found a village that seemed to show the right kind of a layout. The +inhabitants hadn't found that Adam had been dispossessed, and were +going right along naming the animals and killing snakes just as if +they were in the Garden of Eden. They call this town Mount Nebo, and +it's up near the spot where Kentucky and West Virginia and North +Carolina corner together. Them States don't meet? Well, it was in that +neighborhood, anyway. + +"After putting in a week proving I wasn't a revenue officer, I went +over to the store where the rude fourflushers of the hamlet lied, to +see if I could get a line on the kind of man I wanted. + +"'Gentlemen,' says I, after we had rubbed noses and gathered 'round +the dried-apple barrel. 'I don't suppose there's another community +in the whole world into which sin and chicanery has less extensively +permeated than this. Life here, where all the women are brave and +propitious and all the men honest and expedient, must, indeed, be +an idol. It reminds me,' says I, 'of Goldstein's beautiful ballad +entitled "The Deserted Village," which says: + + + 'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, + What art can drive its charms away? + The judge rode slowly down the lane, mother. + For I'm to be Queen of the May.' + + +"'Why, yes, Mr. Peters,' says the storekeeper. 'I reckon we air about +as moral and torpid a community as there be on the mounting, according +to censuses of opinion; but I reckon you ain't ever met Rufe Tatum.' + +"'Why, no,' says the town constable, 'he can't hardly have ever. That +air Rufe is shore the monstrousest scalawag that has escaped hangin' +on the galluses. And that puts me in mind that I ought to have turned +Rufe out of the lockup before yesterday. The thirty days he got for +killin' Yance Goodloe was up then. A day or two more won't hurt Rufe +any, though.' + +"'Shucks, now,' says I, in the mountain idiom, 'don't tell me there's +a man in Mount Nebo as bad as that.' + +"'Worse,' says the storekeeper. 'He steals hogs.' + +"I think I will look up this Mr. Tatum; so a day or two after the +constable turned him out I got acquainted with him and invited him out +on the edge of town to sit on a log and talk business. + +"What I wanted was a partner with a natural rural make-up to play a +part in some little one-act outrages that I was going to book with the +Pitfall & Gin circuit in some of the Western towns; and this R. Tatum +was born for the role as sure as nature cast Fairbanks for the stuff +that kept _Eliza_ from sinking into the river. + +"He was about the size of a first baseman; and he had ambiguous blue +eyes like the china dog on the mantelpiece that Aunt Harriet used to +play with when she was a child. His hair waved a little bit like the +statue of the dinkus-thrower at the Vacation in Rome, but the color +of it reminded you of the 'Sunset in the Grand Canon, by an American +Artist,' that they hang over the stove-pipe holes in the salongs. +He was the Reub, without needing a touch. You'd have known him for +one, even if you'd seen him on the vaudeville stage with one cotton +suspender and a straw over his ear. + +"I told him what I wanted, and found him ready to jump at the job. + +"'Overlooking such a trivial little peccadillo as the habit of +manslaughter,' says I, 'what have you accomplished in the way of +indirect brigandage or nonactionable thriftiness that you could point +to, with or without pride, as an evidence of your qualifications for +the position?' + +"'Why,' says he, in his kind of Southern system of procrastinated +accents, 'hain't you heard tell? There ain't any man, black or white, +in the Blue Ridge that can tote off a shoat as easy as I can without +bein' heard, seen, or cotched. I can lift a shoat,' he goes on, 'out +of a pen, from under a porch, at the trough, in the woods, day or +night, anywhere or anyhow, and I guarantee nobody won't hear a squeal. +It's all in the way you grab hold of 'em and carry 'em atterwards. +Some day,' goes on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens, 'I hope to +become reckernized as the champion shoat-stealer of the world.' + +"'It's proper to be ambitious,' says I; 'and hog-stealing will do very +well for Mount Nebo; but in the outside world, Mr. Tatum, it would be +considered as crude a piece of business as a bear raid on Bay State +Gas. However, it will do as a guarantee of good faith. We'll go into +partnership. I've got a thousand dollars cash capital; and with that +homeward-plods atmosphere of yours we ought to be able to win out a +few shares of Soon Parted, preferred, in the money market.' + +"So I attaches Rufe, and we go away from Mount Nebo down into the +lowlands. And all the way I coach him for his part in the grafts I had +in mind. I had idled away two months on the Florida coast, and was +feeling all to the Ponce de Leon, besides having so many new schemes +up my sleeve that I had to wear kimonos to hold 'em. + +"I intended to assume a funnel shape and mow a path nine miles wide +though the farming belt of the Middle West; so we headed in that +direction. But when we got as far as Lexington we found Binkley +Brothers' circus there, and the blue-grass peasantry romping into +town and pounding the Belgian blocks with their hand-pegged sabots as +artless and arbitrary as an extra session of a Datto Bryan drama. I +never pass a circus without pulling the valve-cord and coming down for +a little Key West money; so I engaged a couple of rooms and board for +Rufe and me at a house near the circus grounds run by a widow lady +named Peevy. Then I took Rufe to a clothing store and gent's-outfitted +him. He showed up strong, as I knew he would, after he was rigged up +in the ready-made rutabaga regalia. Me and old Misfitzky stuffed him +into a bright blue suit with a Nile green visible plaid effect, and +riveted on a fancy vest of a light Tuskegee Normal tan color, a red +necktie, and the yellowest pair of shoes in town. + +"They were the first clothes Rufe had ever worn except the gingham +layette and the butternut top-dressing of his native kraal, and he +looked as self-conscious as an Igorrote with a new nose-ring. + +"That night I went down to the circus tents and opened a small shell +game. Rufe was to be the capper. I gave him a roll of phony currency +to bet with and kept a bunch of it in a special pocket to pay his +winnings out of. No; I didn't mistrust him; but I simply can't +manipulate the ball to lose when I see real money bet. My fingers go +on a strike every time I try it. + +"I set up my little table and began to show them how easy it was to +guess which shell the little pea was under. The unlettered hinds +gathered in a thick semicircle and began to nudge elbows and banter +one another to bet. Then was when Rufe ought to have single-footed +up and called the turn on the little joker for a few tens and fives +to get them started. But, no Rufe. I'd seen him two or three times +walking about and looking at the side-show pictures with his mouth +full of peanut candy; but he never came nigh. + +"The crowd piked a little; but trying to work the shells without a +capper is like fishing without a bait. I closed the game with only +forty-two dollars of the unearned increment, while I had been counting +on yanking the yeomen for two hundred at least. I went home at eleven +and went to bed. I supposed that the circus had proved too alluring +for Rufe, and that he had succumbed to it, concert and all; but I +meant to give him a lecture on general business principles in the +morning. + +"Just after Morpheus had got both my shoulders to the shuck mattress +I hears a houseful of unbecoming and ribald noises like a youngster +screeching with green-apple colic. I opens my door and calls out in +the hall for the widow lady, and when she sticks her head out, I says: +'Mrs. Peevy, ma'am, would you mind choking off that kid of yours so +that honest people can get their rest?' + +"'Sir,' says she, 'it's no child of mine. It's the pig squealing that +your friend Mr. Tatum brought home to his room a couple of hours ago. +And if you are uncle or second cousin or brother to it, I'd appreciate +your stopping its mouth, sir, yourself, if you please.' + +"I put on some of the polite outside habiliments of external society +and went into Rufe's room. He had gotten up and lit his lamp, and +was pouring some milk into a tin pan on the floor for a dingy-white, +half-grown, squealing pig. + +"'How is this, Rufe?' says I. 'You flimflammed in your part of the +work to-night and put the game on crutches. And how do you explain the +pig? It looks like back-sliding to me.' + +"'Now, don't be too hard on me, Jeff,' says he. 'You know how long +I've been used to stealing shoats. It's got to be a habit with me. And +to-night, when I see such a fine chance, I couldn't help takin' it.' + +"'Well,' says I, 'maybe you've really got kleptopigia. And maybe when +we get out of the pig belt you'll turn your mind to higher and more +remunerative misconduct. Why you should want to stain your soul with +such a distasteful, feeble-minded, perverted, roaring beast as that I +can't understand.' + +"'Why, Jeff,' says he, 'you ain't in sympathy with shoats. You don't +understand 'em like I do. This here seems to me to be an animal of +more than common powers of ration and intelligence. He walked half +across the room on his hind legs a while ago.' + +"'Well, I'm going back to bed,' says I. 'See if you can impress it +upon your friend's ideas of intelligence that he's not to make so much +noise.' + +"'He was hungry,' says Rufe. 'He'll go to sleep and keep quiet now.' + +"I always get up before breakfast and read the morning paper whenever +I happen to be within the radius of a Hoe cylinder or a Washington +hand-press. The next morning I got up early, and found a Lexington +daily on the front porch where the carrier had thrown it. The first +thing I saw in it was a double-column ad. on the front page that read +like this: + + + FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD + + The above amount will be paid, and no questions asked, + for the return, alive and uninjured, of Beppo, the famous + European educated pig, that strayed or was stolen from + the side-show tents of Binkley Bros.' circus last night. + + Geo. B. Tapley, Business Manager. + At the circus grounds. + + +"I folded up the paper flat, put it into my inside pocket, and went to +Rufe's room. He was nearly dressed, and was feeding the pig the rest +of the milk and some apple-peelings. + +"'Well, well, well, good morning all,' I says, hearty and amiable. 'So +we are up? And piggy is having his breakfast. What had you intended +doing with that pig, Rufe?' + +"'I'm going to crate him up,' says Rufe, 'and express him to ma in +Mount Nebo. He'll be company for her while I am away.' + +"'He's a mighty fine pig,' says I, scratching him on the back. + +"'You called him a lot of names last night,' says Rufe. + +"'Oh, well,' says I, 'he looks better to me this morning. I was raised +on a farm, and I'm very fond of pigs. I used to go to bed at sundown, +so I never saw one by lamplight before. Tell you what I'll do, Rufe,' +I says. 'I'll give you ten dollars for that pig.' + +"'I reckon I wouldn't sell this shoat,' says he. 'If it was any other +one I might.' + +"'Why not this one?' I asked, fearful that he might know something. + +"'Why, because,' says he, 'it was the grandest achievement of my life. +There ain't airy other man that could have done it. If I ever have a +fireside and children, I'll sit beside it and tell 'em how their daddy +toted off a shoat from a whole circus full of people. And maybe my +grandchildren, too. They'll certainly be proud a whole passel. Why,' +says he, 'there was two tents, one openin' into the other. This shoat +was on a platform, tied with a little chain. I seen a giant and a +lady with a fine chance of bushy white hair in the other tent. I got +the shoat and crawled out from under the canvas again without him +squeakin' as loud as a mouse. I put him under my coat, and I must have +passed a hundred folks before I got out where the streets was dark. I +reckon I wouldn't sell that shoat, Jeff. I'd want ma to keep it, so +there'd be a witness to what I done.' + +"'The pig won't live long enough,' I says, 'to use as an exhibit in +your senile fireside mendacity. Your grandchildren will have to take +your word for it. I'll give you one hundred dollars for the animal.' + +"Rufe looked at me astonished. + +"'The shoat can't be worth anything like that to you,' he says. 'What +do you want him for?' + +"'Viewing me casuistically,' says I, with a rare smile, 'you wouldn't +think that I've got an artistic side to my temper. But I have. I'm a +collector of pigs. I've scoured the world for unusual pigs. Over in +the Wabash Valley I've got a hog ranch with most every specimen on it, +from a Merino to a Poland China. This looks like a blooded pig to me, +Rufe,' says I. 'I believe it's a genuine Berkshire. That's why I'd +like to have it.' + +"'I'd shore like to accommodate you,' says he, 'but I've got the +artistic tenement, too. I don't see why it ain't art when you can +steal a shoat better than anybody else can. Shoats is a kind of +inspiration and genius with me. Specially this one. I wouldn't take +two hundred and fifty for that animal.' + +"'Now, listen,' says I, wiping off my forehead. 'It's not so much a +matter of business with me as it is art; and not so much art as it is +philanthropy. Being a connoisseur and disseminator of pigs, I wouldn't +feel like I'd done my duty to the world unless I added that Berkshire +to my collection. Not intrinsically, but according to the ethics of +pigs as friends and coadjutors of mankind, I offer you five hundred +dollars for the animal.' + +"'Jeff,' says this pork esthete, 'it ain't money; it's sentiment with +me.' + +"'Seven hundred,' says I. + +"'Make it eight hundred,' says Rufe, 'and I'll crush the sentiment out +of my heart.' + +"I went under my clothes for my money-belt, and counted him out forty +twenty-dollar gold certificates. + +"'I'll just take him into my own room,' says I, 'and lock him up till +after breakfast.' + +"I took the pig by the hind leg. He turned on a squeal like the steam +calliope at the circus. + +"'Let me tote him in for you,' says Rufe; and he picks up the beast +under one arm, holding his snout with the other hand, and packs him +into my room like a sleeping baby. + +"After breakfast Rufe, who had a chronic case of haberdashery ever +since I got his trousseau, says he believes he will amble down to +Misfitzky's and look over some royal-purple socks. And then I got as +busy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wall-paper. I +found an old Negro man with an express wagon to hire; and we tied the +pig in a sack and drove down to the circus grounds. + +"I found George B. Tapley in a little tent with a window flap open. He +was a fattish man with an immediate eye, in a black skull-cap, with a +four-ounce diamond screwed into the bosom of his red sweater. + +"'Are you George B. Tapley?' I asks. + +"'I swear it,' says he. + +"'Well, I've got it,' says I. + +"'Designate,' says he. 'Are you the guinea pigs for the Asiatic python +or the alfalfa for the sacred buffalo?' + +"'Neither,' says I. 'I've got Beppo, the educated hog, in a sack in +that wagon. I found him rooting up the flowers in my front yard this +morning. I'll take the five thousand dollars in large bills, if it's +handy.' + +"George B. hustles out of his tent, and asks me to follow. We went +into one of the side-shows. In there was a jet black pig with a pink +ribbon around his neck lying on some hay and eating carrots that a man +was feeding to him. + +"'Hey, Mac,' calls G. B. 'Nothing wrong with the world-wide this +morning, is there?' + +"'Him? No,' says the man. 'He's got an appetite like a chorus girl at +1 A.M.' + +"'How'd you get this pipe?' says Tapley to me. 'Eating too many pork +chops last night?' + +"I pulls out the paper and shows him the ad. + +"'Fake,' says he. 'Don't know anything about it. You've beheld +with your own eyes the marvelous, world-wide porcine wonder of the +four-footed kingdom eating with preternatural sagacity his matutinal +meal, unstrayed and unstole. Good morning.' + +"I was beginning to see. I got in the wagon and told Uncle Ned to +drive to the most adjacent orifice of the nearest alley. There I took +out my pig, got the range carefully for the other opening, set his +sights, and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of the +alley twenty feet ahead of his squeal. + +"Then I paid Uncle Ned his fifty cents, and walked down to the +newspaper office. I wanted to hear it in cold syllables. I got the +advertising man to his window. + +"'To decide a bet,' says I, 'wasn't the man who had this ad. put in +last night short and fat, with long black whiskers and a club-foot?' + +"'He was not,' says the man. 'He would measure about six feet by four +and a half inches, with corn-silk hair, and dressed like the pansies +of the conservatory.' + +"At dinner time I went back to Mrs. Peevy's. + +"'Shall I keep some soup hot for Mr. Tatum till he comes back?' she +asks. + +"'If you do, ma'am,' says I, 'you'll more than exhaust for firewood +all the coal in the bosom of the earth and all the forests on the +outside of it.' + +"So there, you see," said Jefferson Peters, in conclusion, "how hard +it is ever to find a fair-minded and honest business-partner." + +"But," I began, with the freedom of long acquaintance, "the rule +should work both ways. If you had offered to divide the reward you +would not have lost--" + +Jeff's look of dignified reproach stopped me. + +"That don't involve the same principles at all," said he. "Mine was a +legitimate and moral attempt at speculation. Buy low and sell high-- +don't Wall Street endorse it? Bulls and bears and pigs--what's the +difference? Why not bristles as well as horns and fur?" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GENTLE GRAFTER*** + + +******* This file should be named 1805.txt or 1805.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/0/1805 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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