tors.'

"'I thought you might want to turn your money over,' says I.

"'I do,' says he, 'frequently. I can't sleep on one side all night.
I'll tell you, Brother Peters,' says he, 'I'm going to start a poker
room. I don't seem to care for the humdrum in swindling, such as
peddling egg-beaters and working off breakfast food on Barnum and
Bailey for sawdust to strew in their circus rings. But the gambling
business,' says he, 'from the profitable side of the table is a good
compromise between swiping silver spoons and selling penwipers at a
Waldorf-Astoria charity bazar.'

"'Then,' says I, 'Mr. Bassett, you don't care to talk over my little
business proposition?'

"'Why,' says he, 'do you know, you can't get a Pasteur institute to
start up within fifty miles of where I live. I bite so seldom.'

"So, Bassett rents a room over a saloon and looks around for some
furniture and chromos. The same night I went to Monty Silver's house,
and he let me have $200 on my prospects. Then I went to the only store
in Los Perros that sold playing cards and bought every deck in the
house. The next morning when the store opened I was there bringing all
the cards back with me. I said that my partner that was going to back
me in the game had changed his mind; and I wanted to sell the cards
back again. The storekeeper took 'em at half price.

"Yes, I was seventy-five dollars loser up to that time. But while I
had the cards that night I marked every one in every deck. That was
labor. And then trade and commerce had their innings, and the bread
I had cast upon the waters began to come back in the form of cottage
pudding with wine sauce.

"Of course I was among the first to buy chips at Bill Bassett's game.
He had bought the only cards there was to be had in town; and I knew
the back of every one of them better than I know the back of my head
when the barber shows me my haircut in the two mirrors.

"When the game closed I had the five thousand and a few odd dollars,
and all Bill Bassett had was the wanderlust and a black cat he had
bought for a mascot. Bill shook hands with me when I left.

"'Brother Peters,' says he, 'I have no business being in business. I
was preordained to labor. When a No. 1 burglar tries to make a James
out of his jimmy he perpetrates an improfundity. You have a well-oiled
and efficacious system of luck at cards,' says he. 'Peace go with
you.' And I never afterward sees Bill Bassett again."

"Well, Jeff," said