, and the balance
subject to call when you are very much financially embarrassed indeed.

Simple Simon was one of those men who move about this world unprotected
and without having their wits about them. He was not a sawfish, or a
swordfish. So one day when he was walking up Railway Avenue--it was just
the day after he had told someone that he had five hundred dollars of
scrapings salted down, which was earning three per cent, at the local
bank--a very pretentious gentleman, spotlessly attired, accosted him:

"Pardon me. Are you Mr. Simon?"

"I have that asset," said Simple, wondering how the aristocratic
stranger had known him.

"I thought so. I knew at a glance. The fact is, I have just been
speaking with Mr. C. Quick." (This was a lie. Mr. C. Quick was one of
the money magnates of Ashcroft, but had not hired out his name as an
endorsement)--"and he recommended you to me as one of the leading men of
the town." (This was a ruse, but it hit the bull's eye, and at the final
count was one of the most telling shots.)

"I am pleased to meet you," said Simple. "And so am I," said the shark.
"As a matter of fact, I only approach the better part of any community,"
he continued, pulling in on the line. "To tell you the truth, Mr. C.
Quick said you were the only man in the town who had both foundation and
substantial structure from your roots up," and he laughed a broad sort
of "horse-laugh," and slapped Simon on the shoulder.

"You see, with a proposition such as I have there is little use going to
any but men of the greatest intelligence--those are the ones who
understand the magnitude and the security and the ultimate paying
certainties of the proposition which I have to offer you. You may
consider yourself fortunate. It is not everyone who has the opportunity
to get in on the ground floor, as it were, on a sure thing
money-accumulating business. By the way, where is your office?"

Simon led the shark to his private dug-out on Brink Street, and showed
him into one of his cane-bottomed thrones, while he himself sat on the
yet unlaundered bed.

"Of course you understand all about joint stock companies, trust fund
companies, municipal bonds and debentures," said the magnate, unrolling
a bundle of unintelligible papyrus showing assets which did not exist,
and spreading them out on the bed in front of his victim. The whole
system had been premeditated and had been systematically worked out.
"Now," said the shark, pointing