ea sarpint up to meet
him. He hollered for mercy, an' when his vittles started to worry him he
began prayin' an' took on woful, an' we just lookin' at him sober-like,
ez if his end was clus to. The perceedin's lasted 'bout two hours, 'n'
by that time Abe wus so weak he couldn't hold up his head. Then we
straddled him on a rail 'n' carried him to the boat, 'n' Cap'n Roby sot
him ashore."

"How would you like to serve Weston that way?" put in Winn when the
story was ended.

"I wouldn't mind," answered Jess, chuckling at the thought, "though I
cac'late we've come purty near gettin' square with him. I'd like to see
him humsoever, jist about now, 'n' tell him old Rip Van Winkle hez woke
up, 'n' if he wants any more quarries I'll 'commodate him if he'll come
to Rockhaven."

Then when Page had made up the accounts of all three whose stock he had
sold, handing each a check for their dues, all shook hands and
separated.

And so warm was Winn's heart toward the old man who had "sorter took to
him on sight" that he escorted him to the hotel and remained with him
until he left for Rockhaven the next morning.

CHAPTER XXXI

TWO DOGS AND A BONE

When the market closed that afternoon there was a scene in Simmons's
office and an exchange of lurid language and mutual recrimination
between Weston and himself unfit for publication.

Weston cursed Simmons for an arrant coward and a doddering old idiot,
and Simmons abused Weston for a stupid fool who believed his dupe,
Hardy, was blindly quarrying granite and selling stock to other dupes,
when, instead, he had kept posted, come to the city in the nick of time,
and tipped over their stock dish.

"The next time you pose for a great financier," said Simmons, with
biting sarcasm, "and try to engineer a corner, you had better place half
your stock in the hands of your office boy and tell him to attend the
ball games each afternoon. Then advertise what your intentions are in
the papers. It would be on a par with what you have done. You may be
able to pray with a stupid old woman and hoodwink her, but as for doing
business with men, you have mistaken your calling. You can't even
deceive boys!"

And J. Malcolm Weston, realizing how he had failed on Winn, who he now
knew was in the city, and had been in the exchange that day, hung his
head in shame.

He even forgot to stroke his "stun'sls," as Jess called his side
whiskers.

But there was one solace left him, and he proceed