nd-white-striped clothes at the end of it; fourth, Billy might
not get the satchels switched right; _extra, I won't fool with any
farmer that strikes a match on the sole of his boot_!"

The fifth and extra reason was so unexpected and was laid before Mr.
Phelps with such meaning emphasis that that gentleman could only drop
his jaw and gape in reply. Wallingford laid both hands on his
shoulders and chuckled in his face.

"You're a fiercely unimaginative bunch," he said. "Let's don't try to
do any more business together. Just come up to my room to-night and
have a friendly game of stud poker."

At last Green-Goods Harry found his tongue.

"You go to hell!" said he.

Back in their common sitting-room, Wallingford found Daw studying some
gaudy samples of stock certificates. "Blackie, did you tell this gang
of yours that they didn't drink enough to suit me?" Wallingford
demanded.

Blackie grinned.

"They wanted to know why you wouldn't warm up," he admitted.

"I see the pretty, pretty lights at last," Wallingford chuckled. "I
was sure there was something doing when Curly Harry came up here
claiming a thirst, and went so far as to drink champagne on top of a
highball."

"He's taking stomach and liver dope right now," Blackie guessed. "You
see, these Broadway boys are handicapped when they run across a man
who still has a lining. They lost theirs years ago."

"They lost everything years ago. I'm disappointed in them, Blackie. I
had supposed that these people of the metropolis had Herman the Great
looking like a Bowery waiter when it came to smooth work; but they've
got nothing but thumbs."

"You do them deep wrong, J. Rufus Wallingford Wix," admonished
Blackie. "I've trailed with this crowd four or five years. They're
always to be found right here and they always have coin--whether they
spend it or not."

"They get it gold-bricking New Yorkers, then," declared Wallingford
contemptuously. "They couldn't cold deck anybody on the rural free
delivery routes. They wear the lemon sign on their faces, and when one
of their kind comes west of the big hills we padlock all our money in
our pockets and lock ourselves in jail till they get out of town."

"What have they been doing to you?" asked Blackie. "You've got a
regular Matteawan grouch."

"They had the nerve to try to ring me in for the fall guy on a
green-goods play, baited up with a stage farmer from One Hundred and
Sixtieth Street," asserted Wallingford. "Don'