olled
into a cylindrical wad as tightly as a cartridge, and began to
straighten it out. This was no easy matter, as the sheet had evidently
been rolled while yet damp from the press; but Demorest eventually
opened it and ensconced himself behind it.

"Nary news?" asked Stacy.

"No. There never is any," said Demorest scornfully. "We ought to stop
the paper."

"You mean the paper man ought to. WE don't pay him," said Barker gently.

"Well, that's the same thing, smarty. No news, no pay. Hallo!" he
continued, his eyes suddenly riveted on the paper. Then, after the
fashion of ordinary humanity, he stopped short and read the interesting
item to himself. When he had finished he brought his fist and the paper,
together, violently down upon the table. "Now look at this! Talk of
luck, will you? Just think of it. Here are WE--hard-working men with
lots of sabe, too--grubbin' away on this hillside like niggers, glad
to get enough at the end of the day to pay for our soggy biscuits and
horse-bean coffee, and just look what falls into the lap of some lazy
sneakin' greenhorn who never did a stoke of work in his life! Here are
WE, with no foolishness, no airs nor graces, and yet men who would do
credit to twice that amount of luck--and seem born to it, too--and we're
set aside for some long, lank, pen-wiping scrub who just knows enough to
sit down on his office stool and hold on to a bit of paper."

"What's up now?" asked Stacy, with the carelessness begotten of
familiarity with his partner's extravagance.

"Listen," said Demorest, reading. "Another unprecedented rise has taken
place in the shares of the 'Yellow Hammer First Extension Mine' since
the sinking of the new shaft. It was quoted yesterday at ten thousand
dollars a foot. When it is remembered that scarcely two years ago the
original shares, issued at fifty dollars per share, had dropped to only
fifty cents a share, it will be seen that those who were able to hold on
have got a good thing."

"What mine did you say?" asked Barker, looking up meditatively from the
dishes he was already washing.

"The Yellow Hammer First Extension," returned Demorest shortly.

"I used to have some shares in that, and I think I have them still,"
said Barker musingly.

"Yes," said Demorest promptly; "the paper speaks of it here. 'We
understand,'" he continued, reading aloud, "'that our eminent fellow
citizen, George Barker, otherwise known as "Get Left Barker" and
"Chucklehead," is on