each time Mr. Gubb won
he gave him a five-dollar bill. Then Mr. Gubb posed as a "boob" and
Mr. Critz won all the money back again, beaming over his spectacle
rims, and chuckling again and again until he burst into a fit of
coughing that made him red in the face, and did not cease until he had
taken a big drink of water out of the wash-pitcher. Never had he
seemed more like a kindly old gentleman from behind the candy counter
of a small village. He hung over the washstand, manipulating the
little rubber pea as if fascinated.

"Ain't it curyus how a feller catches onto a thing like that all to
once?" he said after a while. "If it hadn't been that I was so
anxious, I might have fooled with that for weeks and weeks and not got
anywheres with it. I do wisht you could be my capper a while anyway,
until I could get one."

"I need all my time to study," said Mr. Gubb. "It ain't easy to learn
deteckating by mail."

"Pshaw, now!" said Mr. Critz. "I'm real sorry! Maybe if I was to pay
you for your time and trouble five dollars a night? How say?"

Mr. Gubb considered. "Well, I dunno!" he said slowly. "I sort of hate
to take money for doin' a favor like that."

"Now, there ain't no need to feel that way," said Mr. Critz. "Your
time's wuth somethin' to me--it's wuth a lot to me to get the hang of
this gold-brick game. Once I get the hang of it, it won't be no
trouble for me to sell gold-bricks like this one for all the way from
a thousand dollars up. I paid fifteen hundred for this one myself, and
got it cheap. That's a good profit, for this brick ain't wuth a cent
over one hundred dollars, and I know, for I took it to the bank after
I bought it, and that's what they was willin' to pay me for it. So
it's easy wuth a few dollars for me to have help whilst I'm learnin'.
I can easy afford to pay you a few dollars, and to pay a friend of
yours the same."

"Well, now," said Mr. Gubb, "I don't know but what I might as well
make a little that way as any other. I got a friend--" He stopped
short. "You don't aim to _sell_ the gold-brick to him, do you?"

Mr. Critz's eyes opened wide behind their spectacles.

"Land's sakes, no!" he said.

"Well, I got a friend may be willing to help out," said Mr. Gubb.
"What'd he have to do?"

"You or him," said Mr. Critz, "would be the 'come-on,' and pretend to
buy the brick. And you or him would pretend to help me to sell it.
Maybe you better have the brick, because you can look stupid, and the