that he'll divide with ministers, because they'll use it
best. So he gets up this Glory Be Mining Company, and hires Mr. Pepper
to sell the stock at twenty-five cents a share to all the preachers in
the country.

Blamed if it wa'n't straight goods! I looked on the letters we sent out,
and every last one of 'em was to ministers. Talk about your easy money!
This was like pickin' it off the bushes. Mr. Pepper shows 'em how they
can put in fifty or a hundred dollars and in three or four years be
pullin' out their thousands in dividends.

You'd thought they'd came a runnin' at a chance like that, wouldn't you?
There we was givin' 'em a private hunch on a proposition that was all
velvet. But say, only about one in ten ever hands us a comeback. It was
enough to make a man turn the hose on his grandmother.

Course, a few of 'em did loosen up and send on real money. I used to
stand around and pipe off the boss while he shucked the mail, and I
could tell whether it was fat or lean by the time it took him to eat
lunch. The days when I was sent out to cash five or six money orders,
and soak away a bunch of checks, he'd call a cab at twelve-thirty and
wouldn't come back until near four; but when there wa'n't much doin'
he'd send out for a tray and put in the afternoon dictatin' names and
addresses to Miss Allen.

Then there come a slack spell that lasted for a couple of weeks, and we
didn't get hardly any mail at all, except from some crank out in
Illinois that had splurged on a whole ten dollars' worth of shares, and
wrote in about every other day wantin' to know when the dividends was
goin' to begin comin' his way. I heard Miss Allen talkin' it over with
Sweetie.

It was along about then that this duck from the post-office buildin'
showed up. He comes gumshoein' around one noon hour, while I was all by
my lonesome, and he asks a whole lot of questions that I'd forgot the
answer to. I was tellin' the boss about him that night around closin' up
time.

"I sized him up for one of them cheap skates from the Marshal's office,"
says I. "I didn't know what his game was and I wa'n't goin' to give up
all I knew to him; so I tells him to call around to-morrow and you'll
load him up with all the information his nut can hold. Was that right?"

Mr. Pepper seems to be mighty int'rested for awhile; but then he grins,
pats me on the shoulder, and says: "That was just right, Torchy, exactly
right. I couldn't have done it better myself."