f 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 brea