nd."

I shook my head. "I'll nibble at these," I said, "until you get
through." And I reached for a little saucer of salted peanuts that
lurked in the shadow of the bowl containing the olives and the celery.
For this, you should know, was a table d'hote establishment, and no such
place is complete without its drowned olives and its wilted celery.

"Speaking of peanuts," he said, "I don't seem to care deeply for such. I
lost my taste for them dainties quite some time back."

"What was the occasion?" I prompted, for I saw the light of reminiscence
smouldering in his eye.

"It wasn't no occasion," he said; "it was a catastrophe. Did I ever
happen to tell you about the time I furnished the financial backing for
Windy Jordan and his educated bull, and what happened when the blow-off
came?"

I shook my head and in silence hearkened.

"It makes quite an earful," he continued. "Business for gents in my
profession was very punk here on the Main Stem that season. By reason of
the dishonest police it was mighty hard for an honest grafter to make a
living. It certainly was depressing to trim an Ezra for his roll and
then have to cut up the net proceeds with so many central-office guys
that you had to go back and borrow car-fare from the sucker to get home
on. Besides, I was somewhat lonely and low in my peace of mind on
account of my regular side-kick the Sweet Caps Kid being in the
hospital. He'd made the grievous mistake of trying to sell a
half-interest in the Aquarium to a visiting Swede. Right in the middle
of the negotiations something came up that made the Swede doubtful that
all was not well, and he betrayed his increasing misgivings by hauling
out a set of old-fashioned genuine antique brass knucks and nicking up
Sweet Caps' scalp to such an extent my unfortunate companion had to
spend three weeks on the flat of his back in the casualty ward, with a
couple of doctors coming in every morning to replace the divots. Pending
his recovery, I was sort of figuring on visiting Antioch, Gilead, Zion
and other religious towns up State with a view of selling the haymakers
some Bermuda oats for their fall planting, when along came Windy Jordan
and broached a proposition.

"This here Windy Jordan was one of them human draughts; hence the name.
At all hours there was a strong breeze blowing out of him in the form of
words. If he wasn't conversing, it was a sign he had acute sore throat.
But to counteract that fault he was the so