isurely, as one at peace with
the world. His paper was propped before him; he chuckled as he read.
Breakfast finished, he pulled his coffee over, lit a cigar and puffed
luxuriously. Not till then did he open the letter taken from the
discarded coat of yesterday. It read:

Well, old man, I am sending you an easy one. Crack him hard for me.
He's the rankest sucker yet. I was going to work the Scholar's Gambit
on him, but he'll get his hooks on a whole bunch of money when he gets
down town, so I turn him over to you. 'Fifty thou. to be paid him
by Atwood, Strange & Atwood. You know of them--Mining Engineers and
Experts, 25 Broad. Let him get the boodle and hand him a sour one.

Name, Steve Thompson, en route to New York. Section 5, Sleeper
Tonawanda, Phoebe Snow. Brown, smooth-shaved, hand-me-down suit,
cowboy hat. From Butte, Montana. Has sold his mine, the Copper-bottom
(on right of trail northeast of Anaconda). Former partner, Frank
Short, killed by powder explosion at Bozeman, two years ago. Appendix
subjoined with partial list of his friends, details about his mine,
his ten years of unsuccessful prospecting, etc. Am not so explicit as
usual, because he is such a big-mouthed damfool he'll tell you all he
knows before you get to Hoboken. Also I am in some haste. I am to take
him to Niagara with me to give you time to get this and join him at
Binghamton, if you are there as planned. If not, I have wired Jim
to meet train at Hoboken and keep in touch with him till you come,
scraping acquaintance if necessary. Then he can disappear and leave
you to put the kibosh on him. Jim is all right, but he lacks your
magnetism, and your light, firm touch. You can beat us all putting up
a blue front.

RUBE.

Mr. Mitchell rose to instant action. In a very few minutes his trunk
was packed, his bill paid. He then hied him in haste to the Carnegie
Library, where, till train time, he fairly saturated himself with
information concerning Butte and vicinity.

When the train pulled out from Binghamton, Mitchell sat across the
aisle from Thompson, deep in his paper. A visorless black cap adorned
his head, beneath which flowed his reverend white hair; rimless
eye-glasses imparted to his unimpeachable respectability an eminently
aristocratic air. These glasses he wiped carefully from time to time
with a white silk handkerchief, which he laid across his ample knees,
resuming his reading, oblivious to all else.

The paper was laid aside