late, my friend! I've got a written order--_a written
order_--from your client, as you call her. She can't go back on it now.
I've got the bonds and I'm going to dispose of them."

"Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can do as you see fit.
But"--and he produced ten genuine one-thousand-dollar bills and
exhibited them to Mr. Badger at a safe distance--"I now on behalf of
Mrs. Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thousand dollars you
have just paid out to cancel her note, and I demand the return of the
securities. Incidentally I beg to inform you that they are not worth the
paper they are printed on."

"Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear! old friend, you might have
saved yourself the trouble of coming round here. You and your client
can go straight to hell. _You_ can keep the money; _I'll_ keep the
bonds. See?"

Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly.

Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started slowly for the
door.

"You absolutely and finally decline to give up the securities?" he asked
plaintively.

"Absolutely and finally?" mocked Mr. Badger with a sweeping bow.

"Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd heard of you a great many
times but I never realized before what an unscrupulous man you were!
Anyhow, I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you take the
trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find the certificate of
stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil Company you used to flim flam Mrs.
Effingham with out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it on
someone else! Anyhow, she's about two thousand dollars to the good. It
isn't every widow who can get twenty per cent and then get her money
back in full."

The Hepplewhite Tramp

"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized
or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will
we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment
of his peers or by the law of the land."
--MAGNA CHARTA, Sec. 39.

"'Somebody has been lying in my bed--and here she
is,' cried the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small,
wee voice."
--THE THREE BEARS.

One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John De Puyster Hepplewhite.
The chief reason for his niceness was his entire satisfaction with
himself and the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as
protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise unpleas