ughing
boys who have played it on him.

"Don't ever ask where a melon comes from," said the red-headed boy.

"Sawed a gold brick on me, you young bunko-steerers," says Uncle Ike,
as he wipes his hands on some mustard and feels in his pocket for the
change; "but it was worth it, by ginger," and he pays for the melon,
they all go in the house and wash the melon off their hands and faces,
the old man lights his pipe and says: "Boys, come around here to-morrow
and play this trick on Aunt Almira, and I'll set up the root beer."

CHAPTER XV.

"Say, where you been all day?" asked Uncle Ike of the red-headed boy, as
he showed up late in the afternoon, chewing a gob of gum so big that
it made his ear ache. "Here, I've been waiting all day for you, with
so many things on my mind to tell you about that I have had to make
memorandums," and the old man took out his knife and shaved some tobacco
off a plug, rolled it in his hands and scraped it into the pipe, and
lit up for a long talk.

"I been working," said the boy, as he took some pieces of chocolate
out of his pocket and offered them to his uncle. "I am working for a
syndicate, and have got a soft snap, with all the money I can spend,"
and the boy shook the pennies in his pocket so they sounded like
emptying a collection plate.

"Working for a syndicate, a-hem!" said the old man. "A syndicate is a
great thing, if you are the syndicate, but if you work for it you get
left, that's all. Now tell me about it. What you doing for a syndicate,
and who furnishes you the money to spend? Tell me, so I can see whether
it is honest. Somehow I can't feel that a syndicate means any good to a
boy."

"It is this way, Uncle Ike," said the boy, as he threw away his gum
and took another stick out of his pocket, and chewed it until he fairly
drooled, "you know these slot machines in the depots and hotels, where
people put in a penny and pull out a knob and get a stick of gum or a
chocolate, or some peppermint drops. Well, the syndicate wants a boy
to go around and put in pennies, and get the prizes, when people are
looking on, so as to get them interested, so they will put in pennies,
see?"

"Sure! You are a sort of capper for a gum bunko game, eh? Rope in the
people and get them next to a good thing," said Uncle Ike, looking at
the boy over his glasses. "What particular talent does this new business
bring to the front? Do you make speeches to the people, encouraging
them to invest