is 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
atmospher