ine this sort of job was. And the thing narrowed down to
Mulehaus or old Vronsky. We soon found out it wasn't Vronsky. He was in
Joliet. It was Mulehaus. But we couldn't find him.

"We didn't even know that Mulehaus was in America. He's a big crook with
a genius for selecting men. He might be directing the job from Rio or a
Mexican port. But we were sure it was a Mulehaus job. He sold the
French securities in Egypt in '90; and he's the man who put the bogus
Argentine bonds on our market--you'll find the case in the 115th Federal
Reporter.

"Well," he went on, "I was sitting out there in the rolling chair,
looking at the sun on the sea and thinking about the thing, when I
noticed this hobo that I've been talking about. He was my chair
attendant, but I hadn't looked at him before. He had moved round from
behind me and was now leaning against the galvanized-pipe railing.

"He was a big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; his
mouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed to
move about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; a
cap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever,
merely an old ragged coat buttoned round him, a pair of canvas breeches
and carpet slippers tied on to his feet with burlap, and wrapped round
his ankles to conceal the fact that he wore no socks.

"As I looked at him he darted out, picked up the stump of a cigarette
that someone had thrown down, and came back to the railing to smoke it,
his loose mouth and his big soft nose moving like kneaded putty.

"Altogether this tramp was the worst human derelict I ever saw. And it
occurred to me that this was the one place in the whole of America where
any sort of a creature could get a kind of employment and no questions
asked.

"Anything that could move and push a chair could get fifteen cents an
hour from McDuyal. Wise man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it as all one
to McDuyal. And the creatures could sleep in the shed behind the rolling
chairs.

"I suppose an impulse to offer the man a garment of some sort moved me
to address him. 'You're nearly naked,' I said.

"He crossed one leg over the other with the toe of the carpet slipper
touching the walk, in the manner a burlesque actor, took the cigarette
out of his mouth with a little flourish, and replied to me: 'Sure,
Governor, I ain't dolled up like John Drew.'

"There was a sort of cocky unconcern about the creature that